Hey Kids! It's Time for UNCLE CAPTAIN OCTOS CARTOON SHACK!

[Octopus Prime]

Oh hello, I didn't see you come in! You should knock first, you fools! My name is Octo, and you barged in on me just when I was sitting down to watch completely absurd childrens programming from yesteryear!

I'm not surprised, since this is statistically a very likely occurrence, so don't pat yourself on the back just yet. But since you're here anyway, you might as well read about me watching cartoons. Not like you had anywhere else to be, is it?

And what better way to break in this NEW AND EXCITING thread than by watching 1979s Spider-Woman! Based on the Marvel superhero of the same name! Despite my life-long affection for the House of Ideas, Spider-Woman is kind of a blind-spot for me; all I know is that she has no connection to Peter Parker, and a lot of her powers suggest that Archie Goodwin didn't *quite* know what it is that Spiders can do. Anyway, I'm going in with no preconceived notions, so let's see what happens when Jessica Drew enters... The Pyramids of Terror

We open in the sandy dunes of Egypt, where a sudden sandstorm appears which causes a massive purple pyramid to apepar on the outskirts of a city. Which city? I don't know. I don't think the show does either. In any case, the citizens see a massive ominous pyramid appear out of nowhere and figure "Well heck, we better start praying to that thing then". And as soon as they do, a little ragamuffin child is immediately blown away by a gust of wind and saved by Spider-Man.

Jessica isn't even the first superhero to show up in the first episode of her own show. Also, Spider-Man sounds to be in his late 40s Also, I have no idea why he's there. He just picked a REALLY good time to be in Egypt City.

Spidey goes off to explore the pyramid and is immediately attacked by a giant red-hot mummy with eye-beams, who knock him out and start hugging him.

MEANWHILE, IN NEW YORK CITY

Jessica Drew and her co-worker (boyfriend? Some guy?) are taking pictures of her posing in front of the exhibits at the Museums new King Tut exhibit for Justice Magazine. I... can only assume that this is a magazine wholly dedicated to the lifestyles of superheroes.

"Those Egyptians were really something; mummifying their kings and all!" says Jessica, knowing, like, one single thing about an entire culture.

Just then, Jessicas Spider-Sense goes off and the mummy she was just posing in front of comes to life!

Jessica has an excuse to break away from Some Guy Named Jeff because of his misogyny, insisting she run off while he deals with A LIVING MUMMY, and she suits up to get Mummy Fighting. Jeffs efforts to stop the mummy consists of him running away from it and then tripping out an open window, and crying for Spider-Woman to to rescue him.

Spider-Woman defeats the mummy by electrocuting it with her lightning powers (you know, like Spiders can do) and then we cut back to Justice Magazine, where Jeff is immediately dismissive of the fact that he was nearly killed after being thrown out of a 3 story window by a 3000-year old reanimated corpse, figuring it was some kind of nutty publicity stunt.

Attempted MUMMY MURDER doesn't seem like it would draw much business to a reputable museum, but then again, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

"Oh it was just a one on a million freak accident" says Jeff of the fact that A MUMMY CAME TO LIFE AND THREW HIM OUT A WINDOW.

JEFF!!! JEFF THE ODDS ARE MUCH LOWER THAN THAT!

JEFF, LIVING MUMMIES ARE NOT A THING!

Anyway, before Jeff can move the goal posts on how worried people should be about MUMMY MURDER any further, a small child runs into Jessicas office to inform these two news reporters (?) that There have been Mummies spotted all over the country! It's a MUMMY EPIDEMIC!

WAY cooler than a zombie plague! No contest.

You hear me, Romero? I'm calling you out!

So Jessica presses a button on her desk which causes a fold-out TV to emerge from it with the chief of the NYPD on the other line;

"Hey chief, what's the scoop on all these mummies?" she casually asks.

Holy crap you guys, I love this cartoon.

Anyway, the Police Chief has, in fact, just received an APB to be on the lookout for Mummies.

Anyway, the Small Child whips out a pocket calculator and works out the trajectory of where each Mummy is headed to figure out where the main Mummy Base is; Egypt! He then admits that he made all the math up and assumed that All Mummies would go to Egypt because... Egypt, right? It's where Mummies would go.

I think that's profiling.

Anyway, the three of them hop on to the magazines private jet (?!?!) and head to Egypt to head the worlds entire supply of Mummies off before they can get there, where the one guy left in Egypt who says they should leave because a Giant Evil Pyramid appeared and caused storms and kidnapped Spider-Man. So Jessica makes an incredibly bad excuse ("I forgot to feed my cat") to run off and change into Spider-Woman, counting on nobody else noticing that Jessica is nowhere to be seen but Spider-Woman apparently followed them to Egypt.

MEANWHILE, IN THE PYRAMID, the mummy who kidnapped Spider-Man can speak, and decided to use this moment to drop some exposition; turns out that the pyramids were actually alien spaceships, and mummies aren't preserved rulers and heads of state; that's just what aliens look like. And, now that the lead alien has woken up he's going to mummify ALL EARTH INHABITANTS in order to let the aliens take over the world!

So Jeff and Little Boy wander into the pyramid and immedaitely fall into several traps, while Spider-Woman uses the back door and instead finds the lead alien;

"Your humanity inferiority is proved by how easy you are to trap!" he says, before shooting a laser at the ground that causes a trap door to open to a room with smushing walls.

With one superhero chained to the wall with lightning, one about to become a Jessica Sandwich and two nosy reporters stuck in quicksand (which shouldn't be a concern in a dry climate like Egypts, I would think), Lord Khufu The Mummy greets his Mummy Crewmen to inform them of what he just told Spider-Man, and which they should really know themselves; but we just came back from a commercial break so they might have forgotten. Long and short is that all the pyramids (and the sphinx) take off and commence their plan to TURN EVERYBODY INTO A MUMMY!

Meanwhile, in her smooshing room, Spider-Woman uses Spider-telepathy to talk to the spiders who live in the pyramid and convince them to eat through centuries old granite to free her from the trap, and let her run off to save the boys. Luckily, they were all in the same room, so that parts pretty easy.

MEANWGILE IN ENGLAND, the pyramid lands outside Big Ben and shoots lasers at people that turns them into mummies

"That fiendish Space-Mummy has turned everyone into *spaced-out* mummies" says Spider-Man, who I assumed just web-swinged all the way from Egypt to London.

Then the lasers from the mummy hit Spider-Man, but they only wing him a bit so he gets MUMMY HANDS.

So the news crew decides to head back to the US because the mummies have all disappeared, so there's obviously no longer any kind of news story attached to them, when Jessica blurts out to head to London because of her womans intuition (also her Spider-Sense, but she's nominally keeping that a secret) and, when they arrive in London she discretely opens the door to their jet and jumps out and turns into Spider-Woman. With nobody noticing.

So she saves Spider-Man from the MUMMYS CURSE (laser beams) and they then head to Geneva because... they have... Egyptology Scientists there where they reverse Spider-Mans partial Mummy Transformation by unwrapping his hands, and ask them for help in stopping the Pyramids

"There's simply too much we don't understand about the Egyptians and their mummies" says the head of the Egyptology Department at Geneva Switzerland, "Some people believe that the energy created by the angle of the pyramid may be the key to the mummies preservation".

...I just want everyone to appreciate that statement for a moment.

Anyway, while they were in Geneva for, like, two minutes, the Mummies succeeded in completely mummifying the entire population of the Earth.

Real go-getters, these Mummies.

Anyway, Jessica has a plan and, together with Spider-Man they web up one of the pyramids enough so that it looks like a cube instead, and cubes are the opposite of pyramids so Lord Khufu has to immediately abandon his 3000-year long plan to conquer the Earth, which he had already succeeded at. And as they leave the entire human population of the Earth stops being mummies.

Oh, and also Jeff and Little Boy are still pretty shocked that Jessica jumped out of the door of a jetliner over London and just assume she's dead. Then she shows up and says "Spider-Woman saved me, now let's go write a story" and Jeff takes another shot at being a misogynist.

CARTOON OVER, GO HOME!

 

[SpoonyBard]

I'm so happy to see this thread reincarnated.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Anyway, Jessica has a plan and, together with Spider-Man they web up one of the pyramids enough so that it looks like a cube instead, and cubes are the opposite of pyramids so Lord Khufu has to immediately abandon his 3000-year long plan to conquer the Earth, which he had already succeeded at. And as they leave the entire human population of the Earth stops being mummies.

Holy shit, this is loosely the plot of a Doom Patrol comic. It turns out the Pentagon is actually a pentagram and causes evil weirdness to fester underneath it so Flex Mentallo, Man of Muscle Mystery, flexes his muscles so hard that the Pentagon is turned into a circle, giving our heroes a big advantage over the evil spirit birthed from telephones.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Doom Patrol was written by Grant Morrison, so what’s this shows excuse?

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Did Steve Gerber write it? He wrote a ton of cartoons in the 80s in the most Steve Gerber way possible. He was the ur-Morrison.

 

[Rascally Badger]

I can hear the jingle the accompanies this .gif, even though I haven't seen it in two decades, at least

 

[Torzelbaum]

I can hear the jingle the accompanies this .gif, even though I haven't seen it in two decades, at least

I think I can too. (Wait. Was that still in use even as recently as that?)

 

[Rascally Badger]

A quick google suggests that those bumpers were used as recently as 1993.

 

[Torzelbaum]

A quick google suggests that those bumpers were used as recently as 1993.

Uh, you might want to sit down for this, RB - but 1993 was nearly three decades ago.

 

[MetManMas]

Personally I think it's pretty neat that Spider-Woman has her own distinct set of powers and choice of wardrobe instead of just being Ms. Spider-Man.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Which is something that carries forward with every other non-Parker Spider-person.

Though sometimes it’s the same powers in different proportions; Madam Web only has Spider-Sense, for example, but it’s boosted to absurd levels

 

[Octopus Prime]

The good news is that now that the old forum is partially accessible, I can invoke this threads Old Brother

Spoiler

SUPER PRESIDENT presents



THE GREAT VEGETABLE DISINTEGRATOR​

Okay, so, okay, I have no friggin' idea about anything regarding this show save that 1. The President of the United States (James Nocross who bears a striking resemblance to Race Bannon) has been granted the power to change his shape into any element courtesy of cosmic radiation and 2. Nobody knows that the incredible superhero Super President is also the actual President, despite, well, going by Super President.

And thats all I WANT to know about the development of this series. I don't want to know how the sausage is made when the sausage is delicious!

Anyway; one fine day in the Oval Office, Super President is having a debate with his only actual staff member, Jerry, about whether or not to go ahead with the secret bid for a Mars expedition from the mysterious APEX Aerospace corporation. Super President is apprehensive about giving a billion dollars to APEX, because he's never actually heard of them before. Neither has Jerry or NASA, so Super President has Jerry go off to investigate, bringing along a radio contained in a cold pill, referred to as a Midget Transmitter.

Because it was the 1960s, and that was a cool thing to say back in history times.

And, so armed with a tiny, tiny radio, Jerry heads out and hops into the first cab he sees, driven by a shifty looking man with stubble. Which naturally means he's actually a bad guy. A prediction shown to be true when the back of the cab contains not one, but two martians!

Or possibly Chinese people. With 60s cartoons, it's hard to tell what's a weird space monster, and what's just racism.

And then they are in a plane, four thousand miles away at APEX Aerospace headquarters, so either the animators forgot they were in a car a second ago, didn't bother to animate the car changing into a plane (neither were animated at all, actually) or else Jerry went to the airport and was loaded on to a plane at gunpoint while two green skinned people shouted in heavily accented English at him.

Jerry, to his credit, is pretty lippy about the whole thing. When you're the best friend to both the President, and a super hero, let alone a Super President, it takes a lot to impress you.

At the basement of APEX, it's revealed that the aliens (if they they ARE aliens, still unclear about that) wanted the Aerospace contract so they could use one billion dollars to build a DEfertilizer Machine, capable of killing all the plants on Earth. And then rule the World.

Somehow...

"The President will never give you a penny!" says Jerry, defiantly
"I think he will give me ONE HUNDRED BILLION PENNIES" laughs the green man.

Anyway, with all the surreptitious skill of loudly proclaiming "Anyone mind if I take my pill?", Jerry swallows the tiny radio and then repeats Dr. DeCorto (this is the first time the green man was named) everything he just said. Which is now being transmitted to Super President.

DeCorto also fills in with some slightly more incriminating evidence about his plan as well as mentioning his exact position because that is how conversations work.

So Super-President flies to the Apex building in the secret air-car he keeps in the White House garage (again, NOBODY KNOWS HIS TRUE IDENTITY) and makes short work of the traps DeCorto filled the place with, as he's pretty much invulnerable. Turning into the Ozone Layer (???) and also Steel to bypass a laser beam and smashing wall.

Frankly, Super President would have had a much harder time saving himself if DeCorto didn't scream the name of every trap he was going to use when SP was standing, like, five feet away.

So Super President punches him right in the face and then hauls him off to jail. Or possibly just straight up murdered him. This, too, is unclear.

And the episode ends with Jerry asking if the radio transmitter he ate was going to dissolve or if he had to have his stomach pumped or what.

The possibility of just pooping it out, too, is never raised.

Spoiler

Well, my Canadian Brethern would be devastated if I didn't cover this sooner rather than later, so here we go.

THE MIGHTY HERCULES

DAEDALUS BECOMES A GIANT!​

No one born north of Maine needs this show explained. You've seen it. You are probably humming the themesong right now, in fact. For everyone else, The Mighty Hercules was a barely animated series produced in Canada in the 1960s which, owing to Canadian Content Broadcasting Laws, still airs to this very day, usually when Teletoon needs some filler after a movie ends ahead of schedule,

The show follows Hercules (who has iron in his thighs, as per the themesong) who wanders Greece, thwarting evil (usually one of three or four guys) with the help of his magic ring of strength and his horrible sidekick Newton the Terrible Centaur.

One of those villains is Daedalus who, in this incarnation, is less of a skilled architect and more of... Well... He's Gargamel here. He's Gargamel wearing a Batman mask and a bright purple robe. About the only difference is that Daedalus doesn't tower over his erstwhile opponents.

Which brings us to this episode, which opens with Daedalus showing off a large tomato to his evil wizard cat, Dido, which he identifies as a Fruit from the Valley of the Giants, which he then eats and grows giant! Which causes his cat to do a double take.

And, elsewhere, Hercules is wandering around, looking for Daedalus to punch his lights out (Daedalus hasn't actually done anything except Become Tall, mind). And, having found the Giant Man very easily (him being giant and all) puts on his Magic Ring and just punches the ever-loving crap out of him until D is doubled over in pain begging for mercy and then Herc hauls him up and strings him up on a tree.

He's... Uhh... He's very heroic.

Then, because we're only two minutes into a four minute episode, Hercs ring falls off (it's a Magic Super Power Ring, so I guess it's hard to get fitted correctly) and he's back to being a Regular, Super Beefy Dude against a Very Large Man. Which causes Hercules a HUGE amount of panic and Daedalus picks him up and ties him to a tree! It's poetic justice!

Newton, true to his Terrible Sidekick status, manages to find the ring just afterward, but is captured after Daedalus manages to sneak up on him despite being Gigantic and also Directly in front of him. Fortunately, in order to taunt Hercules, Daedalus puts the Magic Ring directly in front of Hercules and then goes off to get a bunch of people to watch him taunt Hercules further.

Look, they only had five minutes to fill, they don't have time to explain every little thing.

So Hercules bends over the branch of the tree he's tie to using his regular Beefy Man strength, flips the ring into the air with the tip of a branch, and has it land on his outstretched finger (it's a very lucky toss) which makes Hercules strong enough to uproot the tree he's tied to.

Then Daedalus comes back with a bunch of people eager to see a Very Large Man laugh at a Regular Man (because it was History Times and they didn't have Nintendos back then, so they had to get their fun where they could) and Hercules punches him in the stomach so hard he goes flying and lands in a magic pond that shrinks him back to normal size. Then he jumps into the sky screaming "OLYMPIAAAAAAAAAAAN" because that's how every episode ends.

Spoiler

Okay, as implied upthread a bit, our own Mr. Johnny Unusual sent me a link t something to use for this thread. It... uh... it takes some unpacking.

Decisions Made Beyond the Ken of Man presents...



Who Shrank Saturday Morning?​

And, guy's, I don't know. I don't know much, and I sure as hell don't know about this. Near as I can tell, this was a promotional special that used Saved by the Bell to help advertise all the cartoons coming to NBC, Saturday mornings in the late 80s. Very specifically Next Saturday. Since Saved By the Bell was essentially the murderer of NBCs Saturday Morning Cartoon Block. This is a bit dodgey. But since the stars, too, were all destroyed by that same industry (Except for Mario Lopez), I feel there's a lesson to be learned here.

Not sure what kind of lesson, but a profound one.

SO ANYWAY, we're starting up in media res where half the SbtB cast is wondering where Zack and Screech are. Zack, for those who are unfamiliar with the nature of the program, is largely Ferris Bueller, but without any of the charm and who is seemingly nigh-omnipotent thanks to TV editing tricks and also, I hate him. Screech is a Horrible TV Nerd, and I also hate him.

Anyway, as the gang wonders Where That Zack Is At, while watching a TV that is in the middle of a high school classroom airing the news for no discernable reason, they happen to notice Zack and Screech wandering through what is supposed to be a Tron-Esque electronic world but is, in reality, a black stage with Christmas decorations, after one of Screechs wacky inventions blew them into Cyberspace.

So... err... this is Tron. This is straight up Tron except it is also Saved by the Bell. Saved by the Bell Ruins All I Love.

Screech informs the rest of the gang that to restore him and Zack from the endless nightmare of living as teenagers forever on TV, they need to get to his Shrinking Machine and turn it off. A very simple set of instructions that results in lots of terrible TERRIBLE flirting between all the cast members because everything about Saved By the Bell is awful, a task they succeed in easily despite the fears of running afoul of Baysides new Truant Officer. And Lisa and Slater decides to just jump right in front of the Shrink Lasers beam because they are idiots. So now all four of them are in CYBER TV-LAND, but not all hope is lost, as they hear a very familiar voice call over to them.

"I know that voice! It's Alf!" cries Screech, indicating that, no, the episode of Saved By the Bell that's also ripping off TRON is not done being bugnuts.

Alf, sitting under a flashing neon sign that says "ALF" in block letters, doesn't seem to care that four humans have been teleported into TV Land, not when he has a cartoon to plug. And so, we are treated to Alf describing one scene of his cartoon to his captive audience.

I'm not using that as a means to describe that they are literally unable to leave, the kids are completely enthralled by Alfs joke-free recitation of an episode of a cartoon that hasn't aired yet.

"And if you think that's great", proclaims Gordon Shumway, more than a little optimistically, "Wait until you see John Candys new cartoon, Camp Candy!"

But first, commercials!

Noted sex criminal Dr. Bill Cosby tells us the virtue of Kodak Film, quick to put away the photos he took with his new Kodak Color camera when he realizes the TV camera is still filming him.

A Upward Climbing baby steals a newspaper and wins a contest to be part of a Pampers commercial. The baby is presumably unaware that s/he is presently in a Pampers ad.

Bounce Stain-guard keeps mothers from being upset with their clumsy children

Back in TV LAND, Gordon Shumway is still trying to keep the disintegrated children interested by telling them about how much he wants to eat cats. Lisa is concerned that their parents will ground them if they remain prisoners in the TV CYBERZONE which puts a fairly slanted view on her priorities.

Luckily, Alf has a solution; all they need to escape TV Land is to visit The Master Programmer (whose name is accompanied by fanfare), but, sadly, he's very elusive.

"The only person you see less of is Dan Quayle!" says Alf to polite laughter from the kids.

Then more clips of Alf Tales. This time he's chased by a large lizard?

"WOW THAT LOOKS COOL!" says easily impressed Mario Lopez.

And then, much like the rest of society they leave Alf alone forever, heading off to a different Tron-esque Laser Tag Arena where they find John Moschitta Jr.; The Micro Machines Guy! Also Blurr from Transformers!

Here he's Flash the Circuit Maker, dressed like a cyborg Willy Wonka(?), and he wants to know what TV show the kids escaped from;

"No no, you don't understand! We're not supposed to be in TV Land at all!" explains Zack, echoing my own thoughts.

Meanwhile, back in the Real World, the new Truant Officer shows up and, having noticed that two thirds of the Saved by the Bell cast is missing, decides to send attack dogs out to murder them if they don't return by lunch.

No, I am not exaggerating.

Back in Cyberspace, the kids find a Japanese shrine that contains a lamp possessed by the spirit of Pat Morita! Whom Slater identifies as "The Karate Kid guy!" Which is all the prompting the lamp needs to tell the kids all about the exciting new Karate Kid animated series!

Apparently there was a Karate Kid animated series. It involved, among other things, everyone searching for Magic Lamps and Daniel surfing on a torpedo that blows up a battleship that has a large target painted on it.

Having told the cast of Saved by the Bell all about the cartoon which he is the physical embodiment of (I... guess?) Pat Moritas Ghost causes a magical door to appear that will lead them to the Master Programmer. Then Zack and Slater start arguing because that is the fuel that powers the engine of Saved by the Bell.

Then they stop arguing just as quickly and jump into the Magic Door that leads them to the Smurf Village. This time there is no in-universe justification for the kids to watch a promo for a cartoon, Papa Smurf just starts narrating that the new season of The Smurfs involves time traveling to Dinosaur Times.

Then the kids walk off and wander straight into Camp Candy, the Summer Camp run by Dr. Tongue himself, John Candy! Which I guess is built on the outskirts of Smurf Village? In the Year One Million BC?

Man, I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. I hate you for doing this to me, Johnny.

Anyway, John Candy then wanders in, his arms heavy with the weight of camping gear, and he's very excited to actually see some actual people who aren't cartoons, or who are trying to tell him about cartoons. Or who are dressed like the Wonkaborg.

But Lisa shuts him down because she straight up wants nothing to do with John Candy.

Wait, is the actual SCTV alumni John Candy stuck in TV Land, or is he just the Anthropomorphic Personification of Camp Candy? I... don't know. and the special is doing nothing to present answers.

Certainly not when John Candy can have some wacky pratfalls (that don't even garner Pity Laughs from the cast) so Mr. Candy can advertise his own upcoming show. Which is a solid minute and a half of fat jokes at John Candys expense, and also he is frightened by a bear, while a very bored John reads a press release.

Screech is completely on board with this, but John wants nothing to do with him. Then he tries to tell everyone to abandon their quest to find the Master Programmer because he's in a terrible mood, and to just stay here in Camp Candy.

STOP PLAYING GAMES WITH THE HEARTS OF THE CAST OF SAVED BY THE BELL, JOHN CANDY!

Anyway, Commercial time again.

Snuggley the Snuggles Bear watches children put on their pajamas

People like Kentucky Friend Chicken

Alvin the Chipmunk dances with Micheal Jackson whilst singing Billie Jean

Now the kids are at a crossroad and don't know where to go, when The Micro Machine Guy shows up again and is much more helpful, telling them to follow the path to Great Saturday Morning Cartoons, and use their imagination to make the show they REALLY want to see, then they'll find the Master Programmer.

So Screech Thinks Hard (you can tell because he's massaging his temples and declaring "I'm Using My Imagination") and then he runs off to a giant NES Advantage controller, saying that "The most exciting I can think of it a fantastic video game, full of adventure!"

Also, pretty sure that the construction of this one set, explains where 90% of this specials budget went. Well, the giant Advantage Controller and the guest appearance by John Candy.

Anyway, a giant Nintendo is as good an excuse as we're going to get to show off Captain N: The Game Master.

"Hey! Let me blast that Eight-Point Wizard and the King Hippo for a while" proclaims Slater.

Back in the real world, the Truant Officer is still trying to kill students with dogs. Just in case you forgot about that. And Kelly and Jessie are trying to communicate that to the captive students (TVs offer two-way communication), but decide to drop the subject when they realize the kids are now in The Chipmunks neighborhood.

"Ooh, I love the Chipmunks!" proclaims Jessie, forgetting all about the school faculty member who is trying to murder her friends with dogs.
"I hear their new season starts tomorrow!" adds Kelly, also no longer concerned about the imminent dog-murder of her boyfriend.

So then a teaser for Alvin and the Chipmunks starts. If you guessed it involved songs being sped up just enough to avoid copyright infringement while cartoon rodents provided wacky on-screen antics, congratulations. You guessed right.

If you guessed that aforesaid antics involved Theodore wearing a safari hat, oven mitts and boxer shorts wrestling an iguana on a pogo-stick then, well... that's a really good guess and I'm genuinely impressed.

The Truant Officer then turns off the TV wondering why kids don't like Laurence Welk anymore and then, once again, reminds everyone that, yes, she is absolutely going to murder four children. With dogs.

And then the captive kids suddenly find themselves in the Master Programmers lair, and he is an Evil Wizard, watching looping footage of that Karate Kid cartoon. Presumably because it had the nicest animation of anything else.

And then the Master Programmer turns around and reveals that he's Sherman Hemsley, dressed in a very extravagant white tuxedo. And he's also super nice guy. He just told The Micro Machine Guy and John Candy try to convince anyone who gets stuck in TV land otherwise in order to give them the run-around so they'll enjoy it more.

As you do.

And, as a reward for reaching him, The Master Programmer decides to make the kids from Bayside High the star of a brand new hit TV show!

Which means that Who Shrunk Saturday Morning is actually the Saved by the Bell Prequel.

Anyway, Sherman Hemsley then teleports the kids back to Bayside just before the lunch bell rings, meaning that they arrive just before the deadline set by the truant officer, robbing her of her excuse to kill them with her dogs.

And since she never appeared in the series proper, I can only assume that she was immediately fired by Mr. Belding for trying to murder the student body. With attack dogs.

And that's all. Thank you, Johnny Unusual, for introducing me to this madness, and for teaching me a new meaning of regret.

Spoiler

Oh boy. Ooooooohhhhh boyyyyyyy

The Best YouTube Search Ever Presents

THE SKELETON WARRIORS​

OKAY! THIS IS A REAL THING THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!

Near as I can tell, this is a cartoon made to advertise a toy line. A toy line of magical heroes and a million billion SKELETONS. Just the intro alone is a solid two minutes of sweet flying motorcycle-riding Skeletons while the theme song (which is just someone Van Halening the hell of of the words "SKELETON WARRIORS". This is 1000% my jam already. The show itself is just He-Man, except with an actual animation budget and if instead of a SKELETON wizard, it had a million billion skeletons, wizard and not!

But before we get to the good stuff, we have to deal with prologue. Seems that two brothers, Justin and Joshua (just finished watching the first episode and, no, I still can't figure out which is which) and they're having an arguement while having a shirtless lightsaber fight. Seems their father the King of Lumonosity up and died and left the older Brother the new King. And that's only a source of contention because he doesn't want his brother to hang out with his buddy Baron Dark. The Evil Cackling Wizard who lives in Lumonocitys Evil Haunted Mansion district.

You know, just in case you didn't figure out that he's a bad guy from the fact that his name is literally Baron Dark.

Anyway, Weenybro ain't having none of it, so he whines his way out of Castle Lumonocity and heads over to Baron Darks Spooky Castle, and the Baron has a great idea for getting back at his brother; they should steal the Lightstar Crystal, source of Lumonocitys luminosity. And he agrees because he's a big ol' dingus.

Prince Weeny and the Baron break into the Lightstars chamber which, being the source of the planets electricty, is defended by King Lessweeny and their sister Jess and her bird. But don't do a great job of it, since the Baron just up and shoots it to pieces. This has two dramatic effects; first it immediately causes the planet to go full Post Apocalypse, making everyone start wearing tattered rags and causes everyone in the Lightstar Room to turn into tornados which leaves them changed.

Specifically, King Less Weeny gets magical lasers, Jess can fly, Prince Weeny turns into a hunk of beef jerky who can also teleport. And as for Baron Dark? Well... HE IS A GIANT SKELETON WIZARD. And he scarpers back to his haunted mansion to show off his RAD SKELETON-BOD to his generals. Also, he he discovers that he can turn others into magical skeletons by touching them and that means he is a Skele-pire! HE IS A BONE DRACULA! AHHHHHHH!

Naturally, this means that the Baron and his Skeleton Warriors should go ahead and attack Lumonocity and finish destroying the Lightstar and probably make more skeletons out of people. As you do.

Their attack goes pretty well since in addition to being a BADASS SKELEBOSS who owns a fleet of flying skull-and-axe encrusted motorcycles that shoot lasers (HELL YES!) Baron Dark and Associates are impervious to harm and can regenerate themselves when harmed. Compared to that, Flight, Teleporting and Lasers are sucky superpowers. So the siblings get the heck out of dodge and flee to their uncles house. With no transition scene so... I don't know how? Their Uncle is straight up Man-At-Arms, btw. Like... in all ways.

Uncle Man-At-Arms says "So, blew up the Lightstar Crystal, eh? Yep, that'll give you magic powers all right" and then gives everyone custom-fit SKELETON ARMOR and superhero code names (King Lightstone for Good Bro, Talon for Flying Lady, and Grimskull for Jerkyboy) and then Baron Dark finds them again as he can psychically connect to Grimskull, as he's half-SKELETON.

Technically, everybody is Half Skeleton, if you think about it.

Anyway, The SKELETON WARRIORS are still invincible and everything, so Uncle Man At Arms just goes ahead and blows up his house, and the explosion scatters Baron Dark and his soldiers so thoroughly that it's a day or two before they can reassemble, giving TEAM FLESHY time to escape and the idea to start an Anti-Skeleton Resistance.

And that's where the first episode ends. And with at least one new, completely obsessed fan.

Spoiler

Well, that was AMAZING He-Man, so how about the regular kind?

A Heartfelt desire to sell the same toy thousands of times presents...

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe​

So back in the early 80s, Conan the Barbarian was a pretty big deal and someone at Mattel figured they could sell HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of Barbarian-themed toys if they changed up the paintjob and swapped out heads every so often, and chucked the whole thing over to Filmation and DC comics which fleshed it out a bit with a surprising writing staff that also chucked a bit of Jack Kirbys Fourth World books for flavor, and Filmation plopped out a syndicated cartoon that had about ten minutes worth of animation spread out across 130 episodes. And The Cosmic Comet was the first of those! And this is Talking Time so I don't really need to explain the show, right? Prince Adam of the planet Eternia finds a magic sword that turns him into the Most Powerful Man in the Universe, and who spends most of his time fighting a skeleton wizard with the help of his buddies who may or may not be called the Masters of the Universe, depending on the episode.

Anyone, one fine... night(?) two of Skeletors generals Beast-Man (name is pretty self-explanatory) and Evil-Lyn (witch) are star-gazing for a Cosmic Comet and, having seen it, immediately attack Castle Greyskull, the source of He-Mans power. And He-Man just happens to be standing right there so he picks them up and throws them the h*ck out of dodge.

Just then the giant floating face of The Sorceress, the goddess who gave He-Man his power in the first place appears and tells He-Man that there's a Cosmic Comet coming and Skeletor can use it somehow to attack again. And, to that end, she sends him off to visit a wizard named Zagraz: The Keeper of The Comets. Who lives on Zagraz Mountain.

I'm assuming you are a big deal if you have any of those honorifics, let alone all of them.

So back at Castle Eternia; He-Man needs permission from his dad to go looking for any Wizards on any kind of Mountains, and King Randor is fine with that so long as he also takes Man-At-Arms (who knows that He-Man and Prince Adam are the same person) and Captain Teela (who does not). He also sends Orko the court magician/jester along too, not because he'll be handy on a treacherous quest to meet a wizard, but because Randor just does not want to deal with him.

Meanwhile, on Snake Mountain, Skeletor, Evil-Lyn and Beast-Man reach in for an Evil Group Hug. Which translates to letting Skeletor control the comet via EVIL MAGIC. UH OH!

Meanwhile AGAIN, the adventure-party made up of Magic Barbarian, Cyborg, Good Fighter and Ineffective Wizard reach Mount Zagraz; home of Zagraz, and find out why, besides being given his own mountain, the dude is called The Keeper of Comets.

Specifically, it's because he has comets buzzing around the mountain like a swarm of angry bees.

Theya slo pose no problem whatsoever because they just stroll up the mountain comet or no. And Zagraz is really friendly and excited to talk to people (he'd probably get more visitors if it weren't for the comet thing), and he also sounds like the Cowardly Lion trying to imitate the Clown Bed from The Simpsons.

Not pictured; comets.

Anyway, Zagraz lays out some exposition that is, as befits this show; insane. Seems that the Cosmic Comet was once a part of a set of Happy Comets that traveled the universe and Zagraz decided to steal them to add to his comet collection but, sadly, he under estimated how powerful his magic is and the spell that should have stolen two comets instead wound up destroying one. And the remaining Cosmic Comet grew lonely and evil without its friend (emphasis not mine) and now it will only respond to Evil; and therefor he's helpless and Skeletor can control it easily.

Back on Snake Mountain, Skeletor knows that Zagraz can't do jack about the Cosmic Comet, but figures he might, so he tells the Comet to send creatures down to capture Zagraz;

"Comet! Send creatures down to capture Zagraz", says Skeletor and, once the Comet responds by shooting MORE comets down, he continues "The comet sent down creatures! Those creatures will capture Zagraz!"

Dude is like Mojo Jojo except without a face. I <3 you, Skeletor.

Anyway, the Comets shot out by the comet turn into rock-men and while Teela Man-at Arms and Orko have their hands full fighting them, Prince Adam slinks off and says his magic word, using up the shows most expensive piece of stock footage and turning into He-Man. And, with confirmation that the Rock Monsters are Not Sentient Things, he has permission to just BREAK THEM APART.

Skeletor really should know better then to send rock monsters anywhere he suspects He-Man might be. I know its the first episode and all, but this isn't his day of Skele-villainy.

Unfortunately, while He-Man could beat the comet creatures easily, the encounter left Zagraz feeling miserable when his attempt to capture them, Pokemon style totally failed and he slips into a Sadness Coma (ayup), so the group decides to bring him back to Castle Greyskull. Orko also gathers up the shattered pieces of ROCKMAN just in case. I smell foreshadowing. Luckily, the Sorceress thinks she can cure his SAD COMA, so He-Man, Teela and Man-at-Arms all decide to go over to Snake Mountain and punch Skeletor until he stops being a problem for a week or so.

As far as Teela knows, they just abandoned Prince Adam on a mountain that is constantly bombarded by giant space rocks after being attacked by a sentient comet that is trying to kill everyone neaby with rock-men. She's... not a very good bodyguard.

Anyway, after a brief fight against Beast-Man that mostly served as a way to inform kids what a cool toy the Atak-Trak is (on sale at K-Mart now!), Skeletor and Evil-Lyn call upon the power of the Comet once more and... well... honestly not really sure what happened here. They were empowered somehow, but the editing of this sequence made it really vague as to how. I think they became giant but there's nothing nearby to judge their height by and they never appear in the same shot as He-Man et all. Anyway, they shoot a laser that beats the entire team and then they somehow teleport right back to Grayskull.

This is partly so they won't die and mostly because Zagraz has been cured of his SAD COMA and has a brilliant idea; using the comet chunks Orko collected earlier he can use his COMET MAGIC to build a second Cosmic Comet and fill it with Good Magic. Then bash it against the Evil Comet and cancel it out.

Futurama had this exact same idea and we all loved it there so I don't want to hear any remarks.

Skeletor, incidentally, isn't futzing around anymore and is just going to smash the Cosmic Comet right into Castle Greyskull and solve all his problems at once.

Luckily, just before the Comet impacts, they complete the spell to create a Good Comet, which immediately thanks them (the comet can speak now, btw) and Zagraz uses the power of SELF CONFIDENCE to restore it and it heads right into the sky to thwart its BAD DAD.

He-Man also jumps straight up into the sky and starts wrestling with the Evil Comet for good measure because OF COURSE HE WOULD.

"That's the last time I try to wrestle a comet" mutters He-Man when this plan works exactly as well as it ought to.

Anyway, the Evil Comet is pleased to have a friend again, and they both thank Zagraz go back into space, but not before blowing up Skeletor.

Back at Castle Eternia, Zagraz is using his newfound confidence to teach Prince Adam telekinesis, a skill which impresses nobody.

Then we cut to Man-At-Arms teaching us the episodes moral, in case we didn't pick up on it earlier. This was a service done so parental watchdog groups wouldn't be quite so upset about the fact that their children just watched a low-budget twenty-minute toy commercial.

Specifically, Man At Arms teaches us that if you believe in yourself you TOO can telekinetically manipulate sentient comets. It's a lesson we all need to learn sometimes.

Spoiler

Man, I wish I saw that before I spent the last half hour watching this nonsense.

A slap-dash attempt to edit TV content presents...

VOLTRON: DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE​

Just to stave off any confusion, this is the original Voltron. Not the recent, exponentially better Voltron: Legendary Defender, which is also on Netflix. Point in fact, I'm about 90% sure this is only here to better illustrate how good LD is. Voltron is the American version of the anime series Go-Lion, a highly violent series that involves astronauts fleeing a post-apocalyptic Earth and discovering a giant robot who may-or-may-not be God and using it to fight the demonic Galra empire that besieges the universe. When bringing it across the pond they had to excise any sort of violence, so Earth is fine, and the Galra Empire is renamed Planet Doom and is populated by robots and robots only. Doesn't matter how non-robotic they appear. Nothing fleshy is allowed to be harmed.

And nowhere is this policy more jarring then in The Sleeping Princess. Where I have no idea if any of the characters are aware that there's a difference between someone being dead and having a nap.

And we open on Planet Doom, where secondary villain Prince Lotor is having a sexy nightmare about Princess Alura of the Voltron Force being murdered by spears and a mysterious cloaked figure which Lotor identifies as an Ogre Guard (for some reason) takes her to a spooky forest. This doesn't lead to a restful nights sleep, which is doubly bad since this is a big day for Lotor.

Turns out his father King Zarkon has arbitrarily chosen this to be his wedding day! Just, like, right the hell out of nowhere! And the randomly chosen bride has all the earmarks of a perfect royals marriage; such as that she's shy and frightened of the blue-skinned monster men, and also she speaks in unintelligible bubble-talk. Also her family's loaded!

"But father! What about my feelings?" Protests Lotor.
"You don't have any feelings! You're an instrument of evil!" Responds Zarkon, projecting a bit.

Fortunately, Royal Evil Witch and fellow Secondary Villain Hagger realizes that the true path to Lotors heart is in kidnapping Princess Alura and forcing her to marry him against her will, so, with Lotors assurances that she get Evil Witch Tenure (or something?) she uses her dark magic to create The Painless Blade, an enchanted knife that will absolutely not ever hurt anyone stabbed with it. It will make them very drowsy. NOT DEAD. I CAN NOT STRESS THAT ENOUGH.

KNIVES CAN NOT HURT PEOPLE! THAT IS A LIE SPREAD BY THE LIBERAL MEDIA.

And so, Hagger put the Painless Blade in her cats mouth, and dumps it on Planet Arus, where Alura lives, and waits for her cat to up and stab her (as you do). Which takes all of a minute. Seriously, like she's impatient to be shanked by a pussycat. And then she takes a nap.

A nap so restful she needs to be put in an oxygen tent.

A snooze so thorough that the EKG she's hooked up to informs us that her heart has stopped beating.

So Keith, completely uninteresting leader of the Voltron Force runs out of the Slumberland Hospice, tears in his eyes and proclaims to the unfeeling cosmos that she's obviously asleep because Lotor wants to marry Alura, not kill her. And the rest of the Voltron Force, shocked in grief, casually agrees that, yes, she's having a good nap and therefor witchcraft is involved.

Pidge (who, in this incarnation is both A Boy and The Worst) suggests just waiting for the spell to wear off, or trying to wake her up or something. Maybe like, shaking her pretty good or shouting in her ear or something. Hunk (who sounds for all the world like Fred Flintstone) has a much better idea; they'll hold a funeral for Alura (who, again, everyone is fully aware is just snoozing) and wait for Lotor to try to steal the hearse. Then they'll beat him up!

So they do.

They hold a funeral for the Princess with lots of Tearful dialogue about how they can't wait for the Princess to finish her nap and to also beat the crap out of Lotor. Then they load her comatose body into a coffin and take her off to be interred. Coron (not voiced by Rhys Darby and who is therefor nothing) restates that the Doctor is also aware that Alura is alive and well, just all tuckered out. And Keith informs him that they know, they're just waiting for a space devil to come by and kidnap her so they can smack him around a bunch.

And Coron is okay with this plan because he's awful.

Naturally, Lotor attacks while the Hearse is making its way to the royal cemetery (full of all of Arus' countless generations of people having a very restful sleep), and most of the Voltrom Force runs alllllll the way back to the Castle to get their Lions, while Pidge just tries to squeeze Lotors head off with his thighs.

A plan that causes Lotor to politely ask him to "quit it".

The Lions eventually return, just after Pidge is tossed off the Hearse. And Lotor is genuinely concerned for Pidges wellbeing for this entire sequence. He's the nicest space devil ever.

Pidge responds to his enemies genuine concern by pulling a grenade out of nowhere and threatening to jam it down Lotors throat. Hagger suggests pulling a retreat because no part of this plan is working, or even logical, and Lotor agrees, and they head back to Planet Doom in their Coffin-shaped spaceship.

Pidge still has a live grenade in his hand, though, so he just tosses it away, pretty close to where Alura is still resting, and the noise of the explosion wakes her up. Yay.

Back at the castle, Alura gives Pidge a peck on the cheek for bravely being a complete friggin' lunatic, and then Aluras nursemaid glowers at him when he asks for a second one. Everyone laughs. Cut to credits.

Spoiler

I want this thread to be all inclusive. I don't want to give the impression that only superhero or "boy" cartoons had a monopoly on being bewildering 20-minute clumps of nonsense.

And the good people at Hasbro anticipated this;

Someone noticing that Pat Benatar is great presents...

JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS​

Not going to claim any particular advance knowledge here, Jem was part of the Hasbro/Sunbow cartoon family of the mid-80s, and I didn't watch it growing up because it was For Girls, and it didn't get as much re-run time as the rest of that group after that ceased being a deciding factor. Short version is that Jem is the stage-name for typical big city girl Jerrica Benton who keeps her identity as a flashy, laser-obsessed pop-star singer a secret for reasons that I'm not sure are ever revealed. Disney recycled this concept years later for Hanna Montana, except that I am reasonably confident that no episodes of that involved a rival band ever trying to repeatedly murder Miley Cyrus with race cars.

Which brings me to Intrigue at the Indy 500. In which a rival glam rock band attempts to kill everybody with race cars.

And the episode opens in the studio apartment of the Misfits, aforesaid murderous glam rock band, and rivals to Jem and the Holograms where the lead singer and actual psychopath Pizzazz, along with her bandmates Stormer and... geez, I forget the other ones names. Let's call her Smogblaster. Sounds about right for this show, are eating cereal and angrily throwing darts at a picture of their Actual Criminal manager Eric Raymond because he wasn't able to book them for a charity show at the Indy 500 Gala. Mainly because it was invite only and nobody wanted Pizazz nearby for reasons that should quickly and abundantly be made very clear.

Such as that she responds to this news by throwing an egg at Erics face and storming off.

The other reason he didn't work on getting Pizzazz a gig at the Gala is because he's conducting a secret Crime Deal there with a mafia boss who I think might actually be Tony Stark, and his hulking henchman Vice (so called because he has both no good habits and very strong hands). Eric, as it turns out, has fixed the Indy 500 by buying out the sponsor for obvious shoo-in victor of the race (forget his name too, something like Marcone) so that Tony Stark could make some easy money betting on the runner-up. Not a bad plan, all things considered. But a plan that's ruined when it's revealed that Jems company Starlight Records just immediately signed up to sponsor the car instead.

Which leads to a lavishly produced, laser-heavy musical number about cars, because everything in this show always leads immediately to musical numbers.

Outside, dressed in formalwear and angrily glaring in at the dinner, Pizzazz hears the generic pop-rock of Jem and becomes inconsolable with rage, runs over and steals a classic hotrod that was parked nearby and drives it into the wall in an attempt to run over Jem and her band. And everyone else in the building. Luckily, Marcone is quick to jump into his custom Jem-themed race car which is ALSO right in the middle of the room and attempts to joust the Misfits. A plan which kind of succeeds in that the Misfits are ejected from their car and then forcefully ejected from the restaurant by angry chefs. And oddly not arrested for grand theft auto, unsafe driving or attempted mass-murder.

Tony Stark, for his part, has come to realize that there's not much chance that Erics CRIME PLAN will work if Marcone is back in the race, so he sends Vice out in the middle of the night to smash his car with his bare hands. Which he does, and which nobody detects until the placement race the next day when his car goes wildly out of control and crashes, sending him to the hospital in traction and breaking Jems boyfriends leg. Considering how the car exploded, this is pretty lucky, all things considered.

None of this discourages or even slows down Jem; she put up a LOT of money to get that car in the race and damned if she's going to let a little thing like mafia interference or attempted multiple-murders or a now non-existant car slow her down. She and the band work all night repairing the car themselves (they have no actual automotive experience, but she has a super-computer in her earrings that has detailed instructions on how to build race cars) and, after another musical number about building cars, they're back in business. And Jem herself is going to drive the car and win the Indy 500, despite a total lack of racing experience.

Building a car I can kind of accept because of the aforesaid ear-mounted supercomputers, but I'm pretty sure that the Indy 500 is a really difficult race to win and some people train their whole lives for it.

Shoot for the stars, Jem!

Luckily, a the right mental attitude is all it takes to accomplish anything, regardless of any skills and Jem manages to take an immediate and commanding lead in the race. While Eric hastily scrambles to the bookie he was working with the mafia guys with to change his bets so he can recoup his losses (this happens several times), Pizzazz notices that someone is praising Jem for anything at all, runs down to the pit area of the track and picks up and throws a racer from his car and hops in, and starts racing herself.

And, as it turns out, "Beat Jem in any field, and at any cost" is another one of those mindsets that lets you accomplish anything, since she makes up for lost time by running every other racer off the road, very pointedly trying to kill them all until only she and Jem are left in the race (Eric makes an off-hand comment about hoping she didn't kill anybody) and then starts ramming Jems car into the side of the track hoping to kill her as well. All while the Misfits present their own musical number about trying to kill people with cars.

This plan doesn't quite work, but it does deal a lot of damage to the already badly damaged Starlight car, and soon the two surviving racers are neck and neck for first place. Jem tries to give herself an edge by having Synergy throw distracting holograms into Pizazz's eyes (while she is racing at hundreds of miles an hour in a closed circuit race track) and eventually the damage suffered earlier makes Jems car explode, which was all the propulsion it needed to cross the finish-line first.

She was thrown clear so the explosion didn't hurt her. Additionally, she set a new land-speed record with her racing.

And so Jem won the day via sheer optimism and Eric is about to get his entire skeleton broken by mafia goons. A fate he avoids when they realize that he works with Pizzazz, who drives directly into the warehouse he was hiding in and tries to kill him with the racecar she stole earlier and which she is still driving. Tony Stark and Vice both figure that she is more likely to kill him, and kill him more painfully, then they are, so they leave her to it.

And then, after a repeat of the Build a Car musical montage, the credits roll.

Spoiler

Here's another episode whose inclusion was a question of When and not If.

A Band of Brothers, Marching Together presents...

Rocket Robin Hood​

Another staple of the childhood of anyone North of the Border that is still airing to this day thanks to CRTC rules. The show is, kind of, a futuristic adaptation of the stories of Robin Hood who, in this version, lives on the Forest Asteroid of Sherwood along with the great-great (etc) grandkids of the original Merry Men and fights the totalitarian regime of Prince John of NOTT (the National Orbital Terrestrial Territories, an acronym that doesn't make any kind of sense). Just as often, however, he found Weird Space Adventures instead. Ss I mentioned before, some episodes were adapted directly into Spider-Man episodes, so that should indicate what to expect.

And one of the weirder episodes was The Haunted Planet. Our own Mr. JBear recommended I watch an episode called Dr. Magnet but, despite the title, that one was pretty boring.

This one, however, opens with Robin, Little John, Will and Friar Tuck (whose appearance varies wildly from shot to shot) all escorting explorer/scientist/French Foreign Legionnaire Enthusiast Dr. Spaulding and his incredibly superstitious assistant Gideon as they hunt down the legendary Dead City of Medosa on the Haunted Planet of Korgor. And no sooner does Gideon frightfully explain that demons protect the planet then they're attacked by an army of winged SPACE GARGOYLES. And despite the fact that they're obviously carrying guns (well, spears, but they shoot lasers) Gideon claims they're attacking with evil magic, because they're demons, and everyone believes him for some reason and become comparably spooked.

The demons all flee when Robin shoots them with his own weapons, and the crew lands on Korgor where, to reach the Dead City and the treasures contained therein, they must cross The Jungle of Horror (all the zones have names like that in the Galaxy of Terror). And no sooner do they walk in then Little John gripes over a rope, which he claims is a ghostly hand, and Gideon gets eaten alive by a plant monster.

Luckily, without that negative Nellie around, the rest of the journey goes pretty smoothly and soon the group is on the outside of the city of Medosa, but now have to contend with its guardians, a swarm of bats! With one eye! And which shoot ice-lasers!

Medosa is apparently Hyrule, I guess?

Luckily, the bats pose no problem whatsoever since they all flee the second Robin shoots one of them (Friar Tuck is frozen solid, but thaws out immediately). But before they can celebrate too much the Space Demons show up again! This time with clubs! And they beat up everyone and take them to Medosas only jail!

Except for Robin and Will! Who aren't captured with everyone else for reasons that are never explained. They are left to the care of a GIANT TYRANNOSAURUS SKELETON however! Which, too, poses no actual threat whatsoever and explodes the instant Robin attacks it, spreading gears everywhere. A trait it seems to share with those bats and the plant that ate Gideon from earlier.

Yes, it seems that this whole planet is working under Scooby Doo rules, and the demons are just guys dressed up in bird costumes looking to loot Medosa of its vast riches, concocting a story of the planet being haunted to keep people away. Robin and Will knock out a couple of the demons and steal their costumes,mthen sneak in to the city and free everyone else. Then they trick the leader of the demons by saying "Hey, c'mere a sec" and punch him really hard in the stomach.

Turns out the leader of the demons and mastermind of the whole thing was actually Gideon. Though there is no possible explanation for why. I mean, he already had all this in place so it's not like he needed any help finding the planet or the City, his henchmen were doing all the heavy lifting, it's all very arbitrary.

Anyway, Robin doesn't want to deal with any of this nonsense any more, so he calls the Space Police to come and arrest everyone on the planet while he makes a hasty retreat and also loads Gideon into a torpedo and shoots him at the Police Starship so he won't have to hand over a prisoner himself.

Spoiler

Grab your pigs and hug your dogs, it's cartoon time!

Super cool female representation presents...

Voltron: Defender of the Universe​

Yep, going back to this well. The last episode mainly involved the shows primary female character snoozing through everything, so let's see how the show handles things when she has a more active role in The Stolen Lion. Spoiler Alert; "Poorly"

Anyway, this time we're opening up with Alura in a training exercise in learning how to pilot the Blue Lion. This makes sense as she only recently inherited the ship from a hospitalized Sven and a life of Princesshood doesn't suggest any sort of practice at flying Robo-lions in combat against evil space Devils.

That being said, the "training" seems to include every character negging her to hell and suggesting that the exercise (which consisted of her aiming at and missing a totally motionless Lance) is too hard for a girl. Way to go, Paladins. Way to set a good example.

Anyway, Lance eventually counter attacks and manages to knock Alura out of the sky instantly because she can't steer a cat any better than I could and she immediately goes into a crash landing. Of course she would. Luckily, before she hits the ground a spaceship comes out of nowhere and gently guides to to the ground.

Turns out the mysterious Good Samaritan is one Prince Bokar, who, despite the similar name and appearance, is not actually related to Prince Lotor. Keith non-commitly says "Oh, hi" when the mysterious space traveller appears out of nowhere to keep a Robo-lion from hitting the ground. And the reason he stepped in is because he was travelling the universe looking for beautiful princesses to marry, and didn't want one to splatter on the ground. A statement which I am not exaggerating at all.

It's a pick-up line which works astoundingly well as Alura has already fallen in love with him because she implied she was too attractive to let die.

Really, really great representation here guys.

Anyway, hot-headed Lance, inexplicably, is the guy that reacts to this entire situation correctly by saying that Bokars story is incredibly stupid. And so Bokar gets into a horribly animated fight against him, and beats him silly. Furthering cementing his place in Aluras heart, and she and her handmaid invite him to the Castle of Lions for a feast.

A feast which a bunch of space-mice crawl over for the sake of some slapstick comedy and because despite being the seat of power for the entire galaxy, the Castle of Lions never bothers with even the most lenient form of food safety.

And watching this feast is Haggers Evil Cat, which nobody recognizes despite it being bright blue with scales and glowing eyes, and the fact that it stabbed Alura until she went into a coma a week ago. And the reason it's around, as Hagger helpfully reveals, is because Bokar is no Prince, or even a person! He's a Robeast! Who has been taught bad pick-up lines and table manners!

That night, there is a swarm of snakes working its way through the Castles ventilation system! Possibly in relation to all she mice crawling all over the food in the dining room? If that was the interior, however, it didn't work as the snakes are all trying to kill the Voltron Force! Luckily, Snakes are no match for space guns and karate, and the assassination attempt fails.

The next morning, the team accuses Bokar of trying to commit Cobracide, with the evidence that they didn't have any snakes up until he showed up (this is flimsy evidence) and Alura tells them that they're all jealous of her husbandu. And that, furthermore, she's going to marry him and also appoints him the new pilot of the Blue Lion.

She's known him for twelve hours! During which time he beat her friend senseless for back-sassing him!

Anyway, Lance responds to all this very constructively by telling Alura that she hasn't known Bokar long enough to warrant trusting him emotionally and certainly not long enough to justify giving him partial control of the greatest weapon in the universe.

Nah, just kidding. He shoots him. And, instead of blood, entire damn snakes come out of the wound! And since the disguise has obviously failed at this point, he reveals at, yes, he's a snake-man created by Hagger and he's going to take the Blue Lion to King Zarkon. And Coran tosses him the keys to the Lion because he's the worst.

Fortunately, only Alura is capable of piloting the Lion thanks to its supernatural nature, and because the Blue Lion is haunted by the ghost of her father (that... Uhh... Is quite the plot point to come in out of nowhere). Thankfully, calling back to the start of the episode, Alura is also a terrible pilot and her efforts to move the lion around results in it being shot out of the sky by the rest of the Voltron Force and Bokar (in Snake Man form) is blown out the cockpit, where he grows into a giant. And after Alura recovers, the team unites into Voltron for the thing everyone watched the show for.

To its credit, Bokar has a pretty nice monster design, and the fight, while a bewildering mess, has some nice visuals, including Voltron fully unloading a flamethrower directly into Bokars face and shooting a crucifix out of his torso, before fully and graphically bisecting him with the Blazing Sword.

Back at the Castle, presumably after having washing all the snake giblets off their Robo-cat-God , Alura gives the assembled men full permission to veto any and all romantic designs she has in the future. Because she obviously isn't to be trusted around any romantic partners.

Cool show, everyone!

Spoiler

I know you wanted me to cover Alpha Commando, MMM, but I got confused as to which Robocop was which and, well...

Omni Comsumer Products presents...

ROBOCOP: The Animated Series​

It's no secret that the original Robocop is one of my favorite movies ever. It's a satire with a pitch-black sense of humour where every punchline is violence and apathy delivered with a completely stoic Peter Wellars and a delightfully hammy Dad from That 70s Show. And the movie was very popular so it's no surprise that the franchise didn't end there. A movie that earned an X rating for extreme violence and cussin' isn't really the first choice you'd make when adapting a children's cartoon, mind, but since the appeal isn't necessarily the amount of on-screen viscera or f-bombs, a child-friendly adaptation isn't really out of the question. Point in fact, this is one of the more on-point cartoon adaptations of a live-action movie I've seen. And this is the first episode, Crime Wave, which adapts the plot of the movie (at least partially, Robocop is already Robocop as it starts.)

And the episode begins with a late-night robbery of a blood bank by generic 80s hoodlums. Because this is Robocop and no part of that statement comes as a surprise. The police are in a stand-off with the crooks, less because of the threat that they might destroy the building and all the donated blood within it, killing hundreds of innocent people (in fact, the cop in charge of the siege straight up, explicitly, does not give a flat damn about that) and mostly because one of the crooks has a Gatling gun and a seemingly limitless supply of grenades.

Fortunately, while the fleshy cops can be shot and killed, Robocops, can not, and Officer Murphy just straight up punches the crap out of a wall and shoots every single crook inside (with stun lasers. They're fine and properly arrested. Bad guys have bullets, good guys have lasers.)

Back at the precinct, the riot officer is Robo-racist to Murphy, as he wanted a good old fashioned bloody shootout with dangerous criminals and Robo just punched and tazed everyone. Plus he punched down a wall. He just doesn't trust mechanical cops. This doesn't come up again, but it's a weirdly long scene of a terrible police officer complaining about a low death toll.

Meanwhile, at the OCP Headquarters, The Old Man (the characters actual name. I never stop loving that.) is having a similar problem with Robocops behaviour. They keep needing to pay out the nose for the insurance premiums whenever Robocop smashes walls and the like during his arrests and debates replacing him with a new model. Enter Dr. Macnimera, who is, for all intents and purposes, Dick Jones. And, like, Dick, he wants to replace Robocop with the enormous tank drone ED-260, which he currently is using as a traffic cop in Detroit. Covered in missiles and giant Gatling guns.

Cartoon ED works precisely as well as Movie ED, and it immediately opens fire on everyone it sees for minor and perceived traffic violations. Then Robocop runs it over and tells all the pedestrians and motorists not to worry, he saved them.

Not-Dick, obviously, doesn't get funding for his new model EDs, so he does the most sensible thing and tracks down The Vandals, the most dangerous street gang in Old Detroit. Which is saying quite a bit, considering this franchise. One of them threatens Not-Dick with a chainsaw. Dick threatens him back with a psychotic walking tank, then offers the gang a briefcase full of money in order to commit crimes as hard as possible. Then, when Robocop proves incapable of stopping them, he'll get the funding he needs to mass produce EDs.

Which will then proceed to murder the ever loving hell out of criminals, but the Vandals aren't big-picture thinkers, so they agree and immediately start pillaging and looting a shopping mall. We also find out that the Vandals are the nastiest criminals in the city not because of their sociopathic nature and more because they all have superpowers. Not sure if they're, like, mutants or if they're cyborgs (Robocrooks?) or what... But yeah. Super kicks, electric touch, implausible mechanical skill, chainsaw arms the works.

One guy is just carrying a flamethrower. That's less impressive in comparison.

Anyway, Robo shows up and is immediately outclassed by the Vandals, is run over by a dune buggy and just generally beat up so badly he passes out and his arms fall off. Robo is off the streets for a couple weeks for repair work as he was close to being totalled by the damage.

While Robo is getting rebuilt (as helpfully expo sited by the News Anchors, who, as in the movie, use the same tone of voice talking about some cute viewer-submitted animal videos as they do talking about a massive, violent crime spree by super powered criminals) the Vandals have been busy committing every felony in the book.

And what have they been doing with their ill-gotten loot?

Oh, not much, just building A KILLDOZER!

Luckily, Robo is repaired just as the KILLDOZER is unveiled and the rematch goes much better for him. Robos initially outclassed by the KILLDOZER (though being KILLDOZED hurts less than being hit by a dune buggy, it seems) but Officer Lewis is there to help by kicking in the Killdozers windshield and throwing a grenade into the driver seat (HELL YESSSSS).

And separated from their Dozer and without the element of surprise, the Vandals are no match for Robocop who proceeds to Robocop the hell out of them by just picking them up and throwing them at one another until everyone is unconscious (Yes! yessssssssss!) then hauling them off to jail.

Back at OCP The Old Man figures that, yep, Robocop is still the only actual police officer in Detroit capable of upholding the law and turns down the ED project. Not-Dick Jones swears revenge, saying he'll prove that Robocop is nothing but a machine.

Which seems like a dumb insult considering how he wants to build things that are even more mechanical.

Spoiler

I've seen a lot of things since I started this thread. I saw a rock star try to murder hundreds of people with a race car, I've seen a comet suffer from depression and I've seen a funeral held for someone taking a nap. And now I've seen this.

The Trouble Man presents...

Darkstalkers: The Animated Series​

Okay, in the mid-90s, some of Capcoms most popular franchise got some cartoon series. Of them, Mega Man and Street Fighter have some degree of nostalgic affection. Darkstalkers absolutely does not. Due largely to the unfashionably awful animation. Despite looking like a carton of toilet milk, it was at least goofy enough that it struck a chord with Tiny Octo.

And, dammit, if there's anything more Octo than a cartoon where a Dracula gets into a magical duel with a Bigfoot every episode, I don't know what to tell ya.

The relevant bits of the shows story are laid out in the opening credits; the galactic conqueror Pyron is seeking to take over the earth with the help of an army (well, like, four guys) of undead Darkstalkers. Opposing this plan are the awful boy wizard Harry (original character, do not steal) and his less awful buddies the Night Warriors. And this is Everyone's a Critic, the final episode. Because it is completely insane. And if I was going to watch any episode, it would be this one.

As we open, Pyron is using his computer to monitor his Darkstalker army; babbling nitwit mummy Anakaris is sermonizing the details of his reign to some penguins (ooookay), zombie punk rocker Raptor is being thrown out of a bar for disorderly conduct and Dimitri and Morrigan (vampire and G-rated Succubus, respectively) are on a talk show discussing the nature of their evil ways (incredible). Unfortunately, Pyrons eavesdropping on his flunkies is interrupted when another spaceship arrives near earth. And who is on board but Pyrons overachieving (slightly more evil) brother Terrayon, come to visit and see how the conquest of Earth is going.

This is a cause of stress for Pyron because he's always been the black sheep of the family, and barely conquered any planets, and his terrible track record with this one is just humiliating. Terrayon is likely to mock him for this forever, and probably conquer or destroy the Earth too, just for spite. No, the only thing to do is invite his Galactic Conqueror Brother/Boss over for a fancy dinner and hope to impress him with his family and friends. Otherwise HE IS fiiiiiiiiired.

No... I am not exaggerating.

This is absolutely the plot of this cartoon about Frankenstein/Werewolf karate.

They're using the sitcom stock plot so worn out that nobody has ever seen it except when used as a parody.

Incroyable

Anyway, for added realism, Pyron invites the Night Warriors (Awful Boy Harry, Werekitty Felicia, Werewolf Talbain, "Electric Golem" Victor, Bigfoot and Gilman Rikuio) over to the dinner as well, so they can sing his praises over what a brutal and monsterous overlord he is. They agree because, well, Pyrons a total dink and they can beat him easily whenever he tries to evil-do, but Terrayon is actually competent and would likely kill everyone effortlessly.

Better the giant space devil you know, I guess.

For the most part the dinner goes well (Terrayon also openly flirts with Rikuio. Pretty cool, 90s cartoon people), but devolves quickly when Terrayon offers to eat Awful Boy Wizard and also suggests eating the entire human race.

As you might expect, this immediately leads to a food fight. Also a lighting bolt punch fight. Mostly pies though.

Thoroughly scandalized, Terrayon heads back to his ship and declares Pyron out of a job. A judgement he proclaims by also threatening to kill Pyron and destroy the Earth.

Guys, all you had to do was not throw a pie at a someone.

Since nobody is big on the "everyone dies" plan, both Darkstalker and Night Warrior come together and decide to launch a joint attack on Terrayons ship, hoping to disable it enough to prevent him from killing everybody. And, as depicted by lots of terrible, terrible tv animation, their attack totally fails and every single one of them is beaten up and captured by Terrayon or his soldiers. Except for Awful Boy Wizard.

He manages to sneak away and finds his way to Terrayons navigation room where, after mashing random buttons on the keyboard, he manages to his the ships navigation computer to Anakaris' stupid crazy brain, causing it to teleport away, apparently to prehistoric earth. Where a convenient tyrannosaur immediately eats Terrayon and his army.

Back in Pyrons ship, Pyron thanks Harry for his quick thinking in killing his brother and declares their truce officially over, they'll go right back to trying to kill each other in the morning.

A future which never came to pass as the show didn't get another episode due to being a huge critical and commercial failure,

YAY!

Spoiler

You want to get nuts? LET'S GET NUTS!

The Weary Sighs of Alan Moore present...

Swamp Thing​

Okay, not super familiar with the character or premise of Swamp Thing, but I got the basics; Swamp Thing was a regular ol' Scientist who ran afoul of a MAD scientist named Dr. Arcane who dumped a bunch of goop on him and buried him in a swamp. And instead of dying, The Good Doctor wound up turning into a half-man, half-plant. Or... err... entire plant shaped like a man. Not really sure which. Anyway, eventually Alan Moore took over that comic and it helped launch his career, revealing that Swamp Thing wasn't just a case of science run amok, but a God-like being who rules nature (and presumably smells awful) who just commandeered that guys corpse so it could have a body.

And then there was a cartoon of it, which was basically Captain Planet. In which The Un-Men Unleashed is the first episode.

And we open with several of Dr. Arcanes mutated thugs in a swamp, explaining that they're trying to capture Swamp Thing for unclear reasons. I think it's so Arcane can experiment on him. Seems like a pretty standard Villain In An Environmental Cartoon goal. And, credit where it's due; the mutant thugs have some pretty good designs. Very toyetic take on Actively-decomposing vampire corpses.

Anyway, they're in a swamp, fighting a guy who is powered by the swamp and Swamp Thing pretty much effortlessly catches them in a net using his tentacle-arms (odd that he uses a net at all, considering the tentacle-thing), then goes off to sulk with his Native American friend and Swamp Game Warden (is... that a job?) Tomahawk. Tomahawk is sporting a head band and torn up jeans and drives around in a missile-launching tank through the swamp action playset. And he is hassling several poachers, driving around in what seems to be the Flinstones car, with a grabbing claw in the front, trying to capture one (1) frog, so they can sell it on the black market. Tomahawk gives them a stern telling off, and warns them to stay away from Dr. Arcanes Swamp Lab (now on sale at K-Mart)

This show is extremely bugnuts, btw.

And, at the Arcanes Lab playset, Dr. Arcane is busying yelling at his assorted henchmen. And, as befitting the fact that the hencmen all looked like rapidly decomposing vampires, of the sort Buffy would kill in a cold-open, Dr. Arcane is straight-up Dracula.

He is the Draculest.

Anyway, through a series of wild gestulations and screaming, Dr. Arcane indicates that his henchmen, being mere humans (who, again, look like walking corpses so... not very mere) couldn't possibly stand up to Swamp Thing, and that's why they lost, so his latest invention The Trans-Juicer, which will unleash their Evil Power and make them UN-MEN.

Good on you, Dr. Arcane, for kind of recognizing a whole spectrum.

Anyway, the TRANSJUICER adds animal bits to the vampiric henchmen, resulting in a Bat-Man, a guy with a snake for a head and... aww geez, no idea what the other guy is supposed to be. Dude got the short end of the stick for sure... I think he's a leech? But... also a prawn?

Meanwhile, the frog poachers still aren't having any luck with catching any frogs for their financial future, and wind up stumbling directly into the bat unman. And Swamp Thing is standing, like, RIGHT THERE, so he starts fighting it.

Swampy wins by turning into a cactus when the bat was diving into him, and the prick hurts so badly he flys backwards like thirty feet and crashes through a tree. Then he gives the frog-poachers a stern talking to, telling them to abandon their frog-stealing ways. And they get scared of the giant mudman yelling at them and run away, directly into the snake guy, who catches them and hauls them back to Dr. Arcane

"THEY'VE SEEN TOO MUCH! LOCK THEM IN THE ATTIC! FOREVERRRRRR" screams the guy who is obviously the best character on the show.

Fortunately, Dr. Arcanes screeching is heard by his kind-hearted daughter whos name I didn't quite catch. Abigail, I think? And she lets them out of the closet. Turns out that she doesn't like Arcane or his tendency to turn people into monsters, but DOES like Swamp Thing, so she helps Swampy secretly from her nicely decorated house in a Dracula-castle in the middle of the swamp.

She also lays out Swampys origin story nice and concisely; and it's largely the same as I laid out before, except that vampire-men were involved in this version. And now the Frog-Poachers are convinced that Swamp Thing is a hero. Who is made entirely of mulch and is likely full of cholera bacteria.

Arcane, meanwhile, learns that Swamp Thing saved two kids. And that,m furthermore, he just KIDNAPPED two kids, so they must be the same two kids and that Swamp Thing must be duty-bound to save them. So he is going to put them in further peril and then catch Swamp Thing when he comes to rescue them.

It's a plan that requires quite a few deductive leaps.

Swamp Thing, meanwhile, is helping another suddenly introduced character, Bayou Jack (with a water-spraying backpack-gun. Just 5.99 at KayBee Toys!) with his new Swamp Water Blaster, when Abigail shows up and informs them that There Are Two Kids, Dr. Arcane has kidnapped them and is going to continue kidnapping them until Swamp Thing gives up.

"THIS TIME ARCANE HAS GONE TOO FAR!" yells Swamp Thing

So Swampy heads off to the exact random spot in the middle of the swamp that Arcane and the Kids all happened to be in, and Arcane reveals YET ANOTHER component to his plan, he's loaded a torpedo with Transjuice and is going to shoot that torpedo at two children!

"Boys will be boys... but soon, they will be UN-BOYS!"

My god, every line of dialogue in this show is like a precious gift.

Swamp Thing gives up, since he doesn't want the kids to turn out like the prawn-guy, and Arcane is slightly disappointed, but perks up by saying "There will be other chances to experiment with my Mutation Torpedo"

After the commercial break, Swampy is tied to a machine in Arcanes lab, where he's been straped to a table that doubles as a juicer and is going to suck out all his swamp-fluids into a medium-sized jar and make an immortality potion (That's his motivation, I guess). While, outside, Tomahawk, Bayou Jack and Those Awful Children prepare to launch a rescue mission.

The Awful Children sneak into the basement of the Arcane Mansion and release all the frogs they failed to poach earlier in the episode, and the Un-Men, being a vast collection of jackasses, proceed to destroy the lab trying to catch them, also causing Dr. Arcane to spill the jar of Swamp Juice on Swampy, reviving him. Then Swamp Thing smashes the computer which then starts bleeding Transjuice, which lands on Dr. Arcanes face, turning him into Emperor Palpatine.

Then there's another fight scene that mostly exists to show off more toys. Swampy and friends win, Arcane swears revenge and Swamp Thing records an audio journal saying that SOME DAY he'll figure out how to turn back into a human.

And roll credits.

Spoiler

Remember Pogs? They're back! In cartoon form!

The memories of 90s Kids present...

Legend of the Hawaiian Slammers​

Okay, preeeeeetty sure that this thing didn't last longer than one twenty-minute pilot packaged with some pogs at the height of that craze, for two weeks back in the mid 90s, but, yes, someone, somewhere, figured that a Pog-themed superhero show was the way to go. Except they didn't actually get the Pog license. So they're all very careful to avoid using that word.

And we open at a Hawaiian institute of science where a rogue archeologist (who looks for all the world like Jonas Venture Sr.) has decided to slice open a an ancient Hawaiian artifact with a laser and finds embedded within it, a single Pog. And not just any pog, it's the Slammer of Darkness.

And oh my god I can not keep a straight face just writing that.

That is poetry.

Dr. Venture goes on to explain (to... nobody) that The Slammer of Darkness (mmmmm I want to bathe in that phrase) and its dark power can be controlled if you just spin it around really fast. Which he does and a huge demon sorcerer, Shadowslam (AMAZING!), bursts out of the ground beneath his feet. And he explains that there are 9 other demons imprisoned in Pogs, and whoever controls them all controls the world. And that, conveniently, every one of them are buried within the same volcano on a nearby island.

Now, I'm not one to tell you how to go about your business of imprisoning world-threatening demons in licensed bottlecap collectables, but maybe you should have spread those out a little more, guys.

Meanwhile, at a playground (directly underneath an active, smoking volcano...), several multi-ethnic children are not actually playing Pog, because, again, they didn't pay for that brand, but something similar to Pog and the lone white-kid wipes the floor with all his friends using preternatural pog-skills. I also take an immediate dislike to that kid because of his stupid haircut, btw. I don't care what his name is, I'm calling him Dumpus.

Meanwhile, inside an active, smoking volcano, Dr. Venture is mining for more Slammers of Darkness with the direction of Shadowslam. And while he finds the Hawaiian Slammer, his excavations cause an eruption and the Slammer is blown out of the cave. And nothing else bad happens. It was just a very small, very localized explosion straight-up strong enough to extract one rock only.

I am reasonably sure that is the opposite of how volcanoes work.

Meanwhile, at the pizza shack, Dumpus the Terrible Child reveals that after he beat his friends badly at Pog, he forced them to buy him pizza. Pizza which he then abandoned as he ran away saying "catch ya later". Also his friends look visibly angry at him the entire time.

Just five minutes in and Dumpus is doing everything he can to be my least favorite cartoon child ever. And given many of the examples I've pointed out in this very thread, that's saying something.

Anyway, while Dumpus is off being the worst (heading to a guitar lesson, in this case) he trips over a rock, and not just any rock but the one containing the Hawaiian Slammer exploded out by the volcanic eruption that nobody paid any attention to! Naturally, finding a jewel-encrusted pog in the middle of a piece of hardened lava doesn't impress him very much except in the sense that it gives him more pogs to play with. Then he heads off to his guitar lesson with a Surfer-dude who I think is supposed to invoke Mr. Miyagi but does not. He also scolds Dumpus for being late because of playing "another gnarly Caps game". Also, he seems to be speaking in a different accent with every line of dialogue.

Following Dumpus into town is Dr. Venture and Shadowslam (nobody comments whatsoever about the 8-foot demon wizard made of smoke) who breaks into Rock and Roll Miyagis trailer and also breaks his guitar with demonic smoke-magic.

Seems like a bit of wasted use of demon smoke magic, if you ask me.

Well, it certainly impresses Dumpus, and he forks it right over, but, when tossing it, he manages to spin it and who should emerge but Marvels Adam Warlock! And Dumpus asks Warlock (his name is Sunslammer) to defend him from the giant shadow demon who is breaking guitars left, right and center. And he does with a giant laser that turns him back into an inert pog.

Then the police show up, presumably because of the series of blinding lights and explosions nearby, and Adam Warlock shoots lasers at them blinding everyone, while he and Dumpus run away. Rockin' Miyagi's house is still demolished and his most prized possessions are destroyed, but at least Dumpus' parents won't realize he was in any way involved. Miyagi is also never commented on again.

Later at a waterfall oasis, Sunslammer finally explains what's going on with the plot; 3000 years ago Hawaii (and, by extension, all of the world) was in a period of peace and tranquility. And that came to an end when a volcano erupted and, in erupting, opened a hole in the time-space continuum (!!!) and released five demons from its depths; The Slammers of Darkness (<3), Lava Slammer (Ben Grimm, except made of lava), Storm Slammer (Ursula, if she were a genie instead of a mermaid), Lead Slammer (also Ben Grimm) Fire Slammer (interestingly, Frankie Raye, and not Johnny Storm) and Shadowslam (previously introduced).

"These five monsters unleasehed their power on the peaceful villagers. Destroying their village. And their peace" explains Sunslammer.

Fortunately, the volcano also spat out five Good Slammers; Rain (Killer Frost, except good), Earth (Swamp Thing) Gold (Platina) Ice (Guile) and Sun.

And the Light and Dark Slammers fought for a century, figured they weren't getting anywhere with that, and instead opted to imprisoned themselves in Pogs rather than continuing to fight and eventually destroying the world. And now Shadowslams back so he's going to pick up right where he left off.

Anyway, since Dr. Venture wants to control the powers of darkness and take over the world, Sunslammer and Dumpus figure they should go off and stop him; and therefor, they go ahead and hop right back into the volcano. Sun explains that Dumpus needs to stay near him because he's feeding off his life-energy and that he must make the decision to put the needs of the world ahead of his personal safety.

I honestly think he is just looking for an excuse to toss that awful child into a lava flow.

Sunslammer is also very insistent that Dumpus has a psychic connection to pogs and then yells at him every time Dumpus questions this.

Fortunately, Dumpus does have a psychic connection to Pogs and the path through the volcanic tunnels that leads to the hidden Slammers starts glowing brightly. Dr. Venture and Shadowslam are following them as well, even though Dr. Venture has a device that leads him directly to Slammers anyway. Eventually, he has the same thought and orders Shadowslammer to plunge the cavern into darkness (no idea where the light was coming from...) and he then tricks Dumpus into walking off a cliff.

Because stumbling through the interior of an active, smoking volcano wasn't an unsafe enough activity for a small, horrible child.

Luckily for Dumpus, the cliff he was tossed over had a pretty gentle incline and it popped him out right in front of the temple that contained the Slammers. Right at the exact moment that Dr. Venture arrived. But he still has an 8-foot demon wizard at his beck and call, and the small childs protector wandered off somewhere else in the tunnel. And since Giant Demon Wizards outmatch small children, the Doctor grabs the Slammers of Darkness. Luckily, Dumpus' preternatural Pog skills from earlier come into play and he's able to flip over most of the Slammers from his vantage spot of ten feet away, with the handicap of being presently strangled by a wizard.

Dr. Venture flips the rest of them and then a (very brief) fight scene breaks out. (Sunslammer also showed up again, but he didn't do much), and the force of that fight causes another volcanic eruption. And then they also all turn one another back into inert pogs. Except Sunslammer who is just killed by the lava-flow as it pours into the chamber.

Unfortunately, Dumpus manages to outrun the volcanos explosion and walks back home, saddened by the loss of his friend. Then the volcanic eruption shoots a rock straight into the air and it lands, like, ten feet from his face. And, yep, it was the disc containing Sunslammer.

And the cartoon ends with a close up of the lava flow from the erupting volcano rapidly encroaching on an unsuspecting town while triumphant music plays because a horrible child got his indentured servant back. Yay!

This was quite likely the weirdest friggin' cartoon I've ever seen and I'm kind of pleased it didn't last any longer than a single pack-in promotional VHS tape

Spoiler

Hi! I'm Octo, an Irascible Scamp! I recently got it into my fool head to watch the Street Fighter 2 cartoon from the mid 90s. Not the perfectly decent Street Fighter 2 animated movie released around the same time. Nor the anime series Street Fighter 2 V (which I have not seen but assume is okay), but the American one. Meant to act as a tie-in to the utterly perfect Jean Claude Van Damme/Raul Julia film.

It's... not great. Animation is stiff, characters are just slightly off-model enough that they're really distracting, and its adherence to Street Fighter canon (which is a web woven far wider than you might suspect) is enough to have me adjust my glasses and say "Um, actually" at a Youtube screen every few minutes, and much of the narrative doesn't make a lick of sense.

On the other hand, this is basically exactly G.I. Joe, with even less imitable violence (forget laser guns, everyone in this world can shoot magical fireballs from their hands), and a villain who is, somehow, able to chew even more scenary than Chris Latta and Raul Julia combined (it's Richard Newman, whos IMDB page is much more robust than I expected, and he's plainly having the time of his life), and a lot of the directions taken for some characters just tickle me just right. But enough preamble, let's amble!

The Adventure Begins​

Where we have a pretty liberal definition of the words "Adventure" and "Begins".

As noted, the show is a sequel to the live action film, as opposed to the games (which, in fairness, was pretty canonically light at the time), but even so the first few minutes of the episode expect the tiny-tiny children watching (who had already watched the movie) to be able to assemble a fair amount of head canon pretty quickly; in the movie Jean Claude Van Guile winds up faking his death so he can lead a strike force against the headquarters of the terrorist general M. Bison at his secret base in the country of Shadaloo. A plan which worked, and resulted in the death of the telekinetic super-villain.

Apparently, the official word is that Guile quit the military just before the final battle, and the UN killed Bison. Also; Bison is totally still alive. No explanation for this is forthcoming, save for the fact that Bison is canonically friggin' near impossible to kill. This is so that Guile is able to travel from seedy bar to seedy bar, looking for secret fight clubs, for people he can recruit for Street Fighter; a hilariously poorly created codename for Americas daring highly trained Special Mission Force.

Anyway, the bar/UFC arena he stumbled into is full of drunken patriots, and he incites a brawl just by showing up. Also, his opponent (The Crimson Crawdad, a character I am not immediately aware of from any other Capcom property) throws a magical fireball at him. That's just something people can do in this universe. Or maybe it's something Crawdads can do. I don't know man, these are tough questions.

Anyway, one of the chairs that someone throws at him (and which he breaks apart with a Flash Kick) had the Street Fighter logo on it; meaning that Guiles commanding officer (whose name I didn't catch) has a mission for him! It is, quite definitely, the least effective means to communicating with a secret agent I have ever seen. This is something that wouldn't have made the cut in an episode of Inspector Gadget for being too damn goofy.

At his secret base (contained in an abandoned warehouse), Guile gets a mission from his Boss (I'mma call him Bossly); it seems that some scientists were working on a vaccine for a deadly virus in South America, and have gone missing, and Bison is suspected to be responsible. Guile assembles a team of nearby Street Fighters; Chun-Li (The Strongest Woman in the World, additionally, hates M. Bison who killed her father. She mentions this a lot), Ken and Ryu (greedy, vain idiot nervous twitchy idiot, respectively. It's like Daffy Duck teaming up with Shaggy).

Guile also mentions, during this briefing that "guns are for wimps" (he expresses this opinion while shooting magic fireballs out of his hands) and that he also has no respect for germs. Which... is a weird-ass opinion to have. He thinks very lowly of people who are sick because germs are small and wimpy.

Gotta say, I like this verion of Guile is a much more distinctive character than his "I'm mad that my friend is sometimes dead" characterization.

Later, in South America we're given a brief intro to the rest of the team; Chun Li has a badly animated battle against some street thugs, and kicks them into the ocean, and Ken leads a nervous Ryu into the rain forest looking for Incan treasure. Ryu expresses nervousness, and reluctance to go along with Kens wacky get-rich-quick schemes, and then he trips over a pig and a bird poops on him.

Little sidebar here, but Ryu has a reputation for being the "Boring One" of the Street Fighter cast, even though he's a rail-riding, bindle-carrying hobo martial artist who loves fighting dudes so much that he has to be careful because he might accidentally kill anyone he fights because he gets too into it. Here he's scared of going on a treasure hunt and so a bird poops on him.

Amazing.

Anyway, a cutaway to the captive scientists now, along with their captor M. Bison! Who reveals his... unethical plan. Not an evil plan, really. Just not well considered. Honestly, his intentions are really good. I just get the impression that Bison doesn't know how to NOT be evil. Like that episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns learns about recycling and decides to use it to recycle all the animals in the ocean into a fish paste that he can sell.

Anyway, Bison wants the scientists to find a cure for that virus they're researching, and figures the best way to motivate them is to kidnap a bunch of Incan priests and expose them to the virus, hoping that crunch-time pressure will make the scientists able to find a cure faster.

Unfortunately, those Incan priests were also the friends of Blanka! Who ran off to South America, hoping that finding religion (Incan religion) would help him cope with him being turned from a regular guy into an electric gorilla-man who is 49% Evil.

The Street Fighters find Blanka and are surprised to find him alive, and they recruit him to their cause, and Blanka begrudgingly agrees, if only to get his Incan Priest buddies back, meanwhile Ryu and Ken run off to loot the temples for any treasure that Bisons goons may have left behind. This winds up being a bad idea because Ryu immediately contracts the virus and starts throwing up and foaming at the mouth. UH OH!

At Bisons camp (which the rest of the Fighters find without trouble whatsoever), the team find Bison and his henchmen (a bunch of guys dressed like the Borg) and a badly animated fight breaks out, resulting in Bisons forces being routed, but Bison himself getting away (Bison has enormous telekinetic powers, and just tosses people with a wave of his hand). And the hostages are rescued from the virus bomb, but sadly Blanka gets caught in the explosion.

Fortunately, as it turns out, besides being a green-skinned electric gorilla man, Blanka is also apparently also immune to all known pathogens and he recovers quickly, and the lead scientist (who is also I guess Guiles' ex-wife?) uses him to make an antidote, that also saves Ryus life.

And that's where the first episode ends; with Blanka joining the team and Ryu on the ground throwing up.

Spoiler

The Strongest Woman In the World​

In which Chun-Li would like to remind everyone that A) she is the strongest woman in the world and B) Bison killed her father.

Without checking the credits or anything, I'd say this episode was handled by a different animation company than the pilot. While it still falls short of "Great", the animation is markedly better, a few non-standard characters get some pretty fun designs and there are some shots that feel more somber and poetic than you might expect for a cartoon meant to sell toys and video games to 8-year-olds. Which is not to say that they ARE somber or poetic, just moreso than, say, Ninja Turtles. Also, Guile looks to be pushing 60 in this episode.

Anyway, the episode opens with Guile in his smelly hostel apartment, sitting sadly on the bed (possibly nursing a hangover) while thinking fondly on his previous life as a happily married professional martial artist before he had to fake treason in order to secretly pursue a psychokinetic dictator around the world with a team of doofuses, then there's a knock on his door. A knock that indicates a food delivery. That takes the form of a plate of sandwiches shaped like the Street Fighter logo! General Escher (ne; Bossly) has a new mission for him!

Oh my God, I love this motif.

It turns out that Bison isn't stretching his imagination particularly much this week; with the help of a bunch of guys wearing ski-masks, he's seized a nuclear power plant in China and is going to explode it up unless he's paid a lot of money, and it's up to Street Fighter to sneak in to the base, disable the bombs and apprehend Bison. To that end he recruits Blanka (because kids like electric gorilla men), Cammy (who possess a Vin Deisel-esque aptitude for vehicles AND is very vocal about wanting to kick Shadaloo soldiers to death. I love her.) and Chun-Li, because she grew up in the area.

And Chun-Li tells him she doesn't want to, because this is the village that just stood by watching while Bison killed her father, and she really doesn't feel compelled to save them. Then she finds out that Bison is in the area, and she changes her mind because, she's the strongest woman in the world and Bison killed her father, so it's up to her (the strongest woman in the world) to kill Bison (who killed her father). Also, when Guile goes up to recruit her for the mission, she's standing in a gym kicking a bunch of karate street thugs (?!?!) around, which she finishes by proclaiming herself to be The Strongest Woman in the World, while recreating her win-pose from the game.

Later, at the nuclear power plant (after some brief slapstick antics where Blanka falls on to a tree, and Cammy delightedly asks that they FLATTEN any Shadaloo soldiers they find on her behalf while she parks the plane), Guile encourages stealth while they search the plant for Bison and the bombs. Which he does by running through the place screaming "SONIC BOOOOOM" while throwing explosive magical fireballs at everyone and everything he sees.

Guile is exactly as good as I am at sneaking missions.

Expectedly, this also results in the place being filled with (honestly pretty rad looking) giant robot soldiers that Bison brought along. And a sizable chunk of the episode is spent with everyone fighting them for a bit, and avoiding traps that Bison set up along the way. At one point Bison floods the room with poison gas from the poison-gas emitters placed around the nuclear power plant (why did they build those?), and the team is saved by Chun-Li doing a Spinning Bird Kick so hard that she winds up creating a tornado that sucks all the poison gas out of the room. A task that she can only accomplish as she is (as Guile informs her) The Strongest Woman in the World.

While the rest of the team explores the plant looking for the bombs, Chun-Li goes off on her own to track down Bison and kick him to death; a plan that leads to her downfall as it turns out she was actually chasing a Psycho-Power created hologram of Bison while the real one armed the explosives and left the plant to his secret base. Chun-Li, upon realizing his deception, kicks a hole through a steel wall in frustration.

Just in case you didn't pick up on the fact that as far as women of the world are concerned, Chun-Li is the strongest. And the main thing she wants to do with that strength is kill M. Bison, who murdered her dead father.

So the team finds Bisons secret base (don't know how... lucky guess, I suppose), and they break in to it; by first having Cammy kick a robot tank to death (yessss), and having Guile and Blanka fight all the troopers inside, starting with Zangief!

In another departure from the games/nods to the movie, Zangief isn't only evil, he's also apparently one of the Four (well... five) Kings of Shadaloo. As opposed to being a goofy, friendly comic relief strong-man, who can flex his muscles in such a way that he can incapacitate people just by posing.

While that fights going on, Chun-Li confronts the real Bison, who informs her that she's the strongest woman in the world (!!!), but he's the strongest man in the world so she's no match for him. And Bison, dude... there are plenty of ways you can establish how far beyond everyone elses power you are without being casually misogynistic about it.

Don't be an ass.

Anyway, Chun-Li admits that Bison is outside damn near everyones weight class, however, he's also standing on top of a lot of barrels of jet fuel (...) and she can throw magical fireballs. And, Psycho Power or no, that'd definitely be enough to kill him.

Bison realizes that she's right and offers to give her to disable-code for the explosives in exchange for his life, and Chun-Li begrudgingly accepts that saving the lives of thousands of innocent people (even if she hates them them so much is more important than her getting revenge on one guy (who killed her father! Her! The Strongest Woman in the World!) and lets Bison vamoose.

And Guile tells her that being the strongest woman in the world doesn't have anything to do with her ability to throw magical fireballs, or kick holes through solid steel, or even create tornadoes by spinning around upside down. It's from begrudgingly doing your best to save awful people you hate.

Awwww.

Spoiler

Chunnel Vision​

An episode that is so cartoonishly British it might constitute hate speech.

The animation team changed again and... this time they did a really good job, frankly. Not counting the fact that Cammys face doesn't seem to be in proportion to her head a few times, this episode looks good. Not TMS quality or anything, but a definite mark up over the average 90s cartoon.

This episode opens in the London Underground (the subway system, not the fanciful hobo utopia seen in Neil Gaimans works), where Bison is using his Psycho Power to move one of those manual-driven train cars.

You know; these things

No idea why he's in Britain, or riding one of those, and the episode never feels fit to explain it. Maybe it just looked like fun? More to the point, however, he's also being chased by Englands counterpart to Street Fighter (and Cammys former commando unit); Delta Red

Except that the kid isn't there, Non-Cammy has brown hair, and the big guy has Bionic COmmando arms as well. Also, they're just called The British Special FOrces instead of Delta Red. Still; amazingly on-model for such an obscure part of the Street Fighter canon. Props for that.

Bison winds up getting captured by Delta Red because a train hits him during their fight. If this weren't a cartoon meant to sell video games to small children, that probably still wouldn't be fatal because Bison is extremely bad at dying.

Back in the states, Street FIghters boss, Escher is concerned, because while the Delta Red knows that Bison is a wanted terrorist mastermind, they aren't aware of his supernatural powers. Even though he was floating and crackling with mystical fire while they were fighting. Also telekinetically moving a train car. Furthermore, he was also hit by a train.

Then again, the Street Fighter universe is a weird one so none of that is that unusual. Anyway, Escher sends Cammy (because of her history with Delta Red), Guile (because he's nominally the main character) to England to provide extra security for Bison until he can stand trial. He also sends Dee Jay and E. Honda. Honda kind of makes sense , as in this he's been re-characterized to be a master hacker and computer specialist (as opposed to the games where he's a sumo wrestler who just keeps showing up because he's been grandfathered in). Dee Jay, however... knows how to fly a helicopter, and he says "mon" a lot so you know he's Jamaican.

Meanwhile, in Britain, Delta Red is engaging in such activities as "totting off to the pub for a kip of tea" (because they are VERY British) to celebrate their apprehending of a glowing psycho-powered madman. And they just leave Bison in his cell unguarded, along with his lawyer, a gigantic, bearded Russian man.

At the Pub (where Bionic Commando-man is playing darts by firing them out of his arm cannon ), Delta Red meets up with Guile and Cammy where they mock Guile for being court martialed and Cammy for being his bodyguard, and say they don't need their help guarding Bison.

Guile and Cammys cover-story, incidentally, is that they work for a plumbing wholesaler, so I have no idea how they were supposed to get appointed to guard detail. Then again, the entire Delta Red team left Bison along in his prison cell to go out to a pub so maybe they need any help that's offered to them.

Anyway, it's a moot point because just then the pub explodes; as do half the buildings in downtown London! Luckily it's the middle of the night so not a one of the buildings in one of the most populated cities in the world had anybody in them and nobody was injured. Just startled.

Bison claims responsibility for the explosions, despite being in prison, and says he will continue to terrorize London until he's given a full pardon and One Billion Pounds of Silver. I think he means the Dollar kind of pound, not the weight, but with this show, who knows?

At the police station (Bison gets a regular-ass jail cell), Guile realizes that the gigantic Russian Lawyer with the distinctive mutton chops and mohawk is none other than Zangief, and that Bison must have been ordering Shadaloo through him. So he and Cammy chase him to a train that leads to the Chunnel linking England to France.

And this is how I learned that "Chunnel" is a term.

Anyway, in a real Taking of Pelham 123 move (albeit with magical fireballs and gigantic Russian men in speedo, which you have to admit, would have helped the movie quite a lot), Shadaloo soldiers hijack the train and threaten to collapse the Chunnel unless Bisons demands are met. So a fight breaks out between Street Fighter (along with Delta Red) and the Shadaloo troops, ultimately freeing the train just as the British government agrees to Bisons demands, frees him, and delivers two big crates chock full of silver and cash money.

Bison is about to get away with his money via helicopter when word comes in that the trains been freed, so Deejay throws a magical fireball at the money crates, blowing them up, causing them to blow confetti-like over the streets.

Bison takes this in stride, figuring he'll get billions of dollars some other way, and still escapes via helicopter. Delta Reds leader (whose name I forgot) surmises that Cammy didn't really abandon Delta Red, she joined a GI Joe-esque paramilitary force that fights supervillains and decides to start dating the girl on the team that looks exactly like Cammy, instead of pining over her (awww), and Dee Jay gets into absolutely no trouble for destroying one billion dollars of British property.

 

[MetManMas]

Nice to see these again!

Please cover Robocop: Alpha Commando for real this time.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I was nice to break Octo that one time.

 

[Octopus Prime]

I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Sadly, I cannot find the entirety of the time Larry and Balki more or less did the same thing.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Well, it's not Robocop Alpha COmmando, but I CAN bring you another bewildering cartoon about a cyborg who fights crime;

So, back in the mid 90s, Marvel was doing pretty well for itself on the cartoon front; X-Men and Spider-Man were doing gangbusters for Fox, and so, another few series were added for an hour long syndication block on other networks (I want to say UPN, but it may have been WB) and it was The Marvel Power Hour. Of the four shows to show up on the block, one was genuinely pretty solid (Incredible Hulk), one looked terrible but was very true to the original spirit of the comic and was the reason I fell in love with that series in teh first place (Fantastic Four), one involved mice, from mars, who were bikers (Biker Mice from Mars) and one... one is prime fodder for this thread; Iron Man. Point in fact, Iron Man may be enough to warrant its own separate thread, this show is just *completely* bugnuts.

You could kill a hundred monkeys with a potassium overdose with this show; that's how bananas it is. It's structured not unlike Super-Friends, but with far a far less prominent cast (in the 90s, Iron Man was something of a C-list hero) and far more spurious logic behind everything that happens.

And what better way to illustrate that to you than the first episode; And The Seas Shall Give Up Their Dead.

And I just want to stress that that is literally the title of the first episode of this childrens cartoon.

We open in the Bering Strait, where the captain of a Russian atomic submarine is tracking down an intruder that somehow got on board; and who turns out to be Hypnotia; one of the Mandarins henchmen and the only character created wholly for this show; her thing is pretty plainly spelled out by her name (she hypnotizes people) and and she immediately puts the entire crew of the sub to sleep. For one entire calender year. And she also puts a viral weapon on board the submarine which will fill the sub with ZOMBIE PLAGUE. Then she sinks the sub by exploding the hull.

Hell of a first day on the job, Hypnotia; you get a gold star

Meanwhile, at Stark Industries, Tony Stark and his team at Force Works (remember Force Works? No? Me neither.) are attacked by two more supervillains; Whirlwind (again, pretty self explanatory) and Dreadknight (guy turned into a pretty metal-looking demon knight by surgery) who attempt to kill Tonys physical therapist (she gets knocked out but nobody seems to care) and also steals a computer chip from Tonys lab (which they are more successful at).

And we then cut to The Mandarins throne room; fortunately, they sidestep the.. erm... fraught potential of Mandarin by making him A Green Space Guy, instead of in any way Asian. I don't know if this is BETTER, but it certainly seems safer, and he comments that Tony won't notice them stealing a computer chip because they exploded his lab and blew up ALL his computer chips; and he needs this particular computer chip to time out exactly how long it will be until the Russian Sub needs to finish brewing up a nice crop of zombies.

And then we cut to One Year Later.

And apparently they spent that year wondering why the Mandarin only attacked the lab the one time.

And since we're coming up on the one-year anniversary of a Russian Sub disappearing, the President wants Tony Stark and his bodyguard Iron Man to look into it. And who should be eavesdropping on this conversation but outside an in-disguise Hypnotia, and also MODOK. Who is disguised as a baby in a stroller.

And I wish DIsney + let me take screenshots because MAN

THat is not a convincing disguise.

Anyway, hearing the the US Government is finally concerned about a missing Russian attack sub that disappeared after everyone on board mysteriously died, MODOK blasts off in his rocket-stroller to inform the Mandarin; rather than tlaking on the radio or waiting until someone might not notice a giant head with stubby arms and legs flying through the air cackling about how he must inform his master that his evil plan is in jeopardy.

He's not a Mental Organism Designed Only for Stealth.

Mandarin decides to send a bunch more Henchmen out to intercept Iron Man so he can't investigate the zombie sub; besides Whirlwind and Dreadknight he also sends out Grey Gargoyle (turns people to stone), Blacklash (Whip guy, not necessarily the whip-themed Iron Man villain you're thinking of) and Blizzard (also self explanatory) and sends them off. He also uses one of his power rings to send Blizzard into a whirling vortex to punish him for being a doofus off screen, previously, and killing his garden.

Blizzard also sounds like Starscream and keeps insisting he's loyal, so I'm assuming he's the backstabber guy.

Using MUCH less impressive CG stock footage than the producers were plainly hoping for, Tony suits up in his Armor and heads off to Scotlandwhere he figures the RUssian Sub probably wound up.

Back at Stark Industries, Hawkeye commandeers the TV everyones using to monitor Tonys mission in order to watch the News where we find out that another Iron Man villain, Justin Hammer, is ALSO involved with this episode, and he opened a chunnel connecting Belgium to England, singlehandedly. I'm sure that's not relevant to anything else.

And underwater, at the wreckage of the sub, Mandarins guys attack Tony and do a pretty good job of beating him up, so the rest of FOrce Works (War Machine, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Woman, Hawkeye and... whoever Century is) teleport right there to save him.

"Exactly as I planned!" says the Mandarin, watching this somehow, "I SUMMON THE ALIEN DRAGON, FIN FANG FOOM!"

Guys, this is the FIRST episode, and it was likely the first exposure anyone had to any of these characters. They are laying a LOT of cards on the table.

Also, the Mandarin then uses his pwoer rings to give himself a little halo and calls this plan "Satisfactory".

Back underwater, Tony gets blindsided by a sucker punch from an alien dragon, which is pretty understandable, all things considered.

"My echo-scanner indicated that Iron Man just took a laser hit and the cyber-feedback hit his brain. If we don't get to him fast HIS MIND WILL INCINERATE!" says War Machine.

Hearing James Avery say "Oh no! It's FIN FANG FOOM!" is also worthy of comment.

Anyway, all of the Mandarins henchmen leave immedaitely after knocking Iron Man out, so there is literally no probelm resucing him and taking him to a hospital;

"First they want to stop you from looking at the sub, and later, they couldn't care less" says Rhodey, summarizing something that wasn't really well conveyed in the episode itself.

"That's it, Rhodey! 'first' and 'later' are both measurements of time!" shouts back Tony, which was all the clues he needed to put together that the Mandarins plot, "AND NOW IT'S TIME FOR IRON MAN"

And so, now that the one year timer is up, the virus has finished turning everyone on the sub into UNSTOPPABLE RADIOACTIVE ZOMBIES. Who are all going to attack the Chunnel that Justin Hammer built.

And so Force Works and the Zombie army all fight outside the tunnel, which mainly involves everyone shooting lasers and repeating the same few shots of the tunnel collapsing at least twice. Hawkeye is punching zombies instead of shooting arrows; while Scarlet Witch disguises herself as a Zombie in order to steal their clubs.

Mandarin is disappointed that his zombie army plan failed immediately, but MODOK tells him not to worry "I've summoned the most powerful and destructive Cyber-Organism in the Entire Universe!"

And so, with two minutes left in the episode the frickin' Titanium Man appears FROM SPACE and starts fighting everyone. WHY NOT AT THIS POINT!

This is really not an issue because Iron Man picks him up and throws him into deep space where he explodes. Dudes hype lasted longer than he did; and Century uses... erm... whatever he does (Axe-Magic?) to cure the zombi-ism from the Russian Sailors and they're all back to normal. Good for them.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

And we then cut to The Mandarins throne room; fortunately, they sidestep the.. erm... fraught potential of Mandarin by making him A Green Space Guy, instead of in any way Asian. I don't know if this is BETTER, but it certainly seems safer

They also did this with Ming the Merciless in the mid-90s Flash Gordon cartoon (I didn't have much taste back then but even I could tell that one was a pretty dire cartoon) and that's interesting because he's already a space alien... albeit one with extremely Asian elements to him. So I guess green was supposed to be some sort of terribly thought out racism band-aid.

"That's it, Rhodey! 'first' and 'later' are both measurements of time!" shouts back Tony, which was all the clues he needed to put together that the Mandarins plot, "AND NOW IT'S TIME FOR IRON MAN"

I wish Adam West was alive to deliver this line.

Century was one of those 90s character Marvel seemed to think was going to be a thing. He doesn't even have his own wikipedia page. To put things in perspective...

Iron Man definitely felt like it was going for a G I Joe/Transformers/ThunderCats thing where rather than a villain of the week it was a plan by the evil faction to be stopped by the good faction. Also, as I understand it, both this and the Fantastic Four cartoons get major re-tooling by season two in terms of animation and writing, so I think its supposed to get "better" but considerably less Octo. Tell me if I'm wrong.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Season 2 is very much in that unfortunate grey area where it’s better, but not good enough to recommend. The lunacy was all it had going for it and that was taken away.

Fantastic Four, as I said, was actually pretty decent (and very much in the spirit of the Lee/Kirby era of the books), it was just pretty horrible looking; somewhere between Kennedy and Nelvana in terms of Early 90s Animation Companies. Season 2 looked Just Fine so... you know... go down that road if you’re curious

 

[jpfriction]

Is the incredible hulk cartoon on disney+? I think I tried watching it somewhere and there were only like 4 random episodes available. Wouldn’t mind revisiting that one.

 

[Octopus Prime]

It is, but I think it’s missing some episodes

 

[jpfriction]

Prolly all the ones with full frontal nudity.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Just opted to watch the first episode of it and... honestly... holds up a lot better than I thought I would have

 

[MetManMas]

And we then cut to The Mandarins throne room; fortunately, they sidestep the.. erm... fraught potential of Mandarin by making him A Green Space Guy, instead of in any way Asian. I don't know if this is BETTER, but it certainly seems safe

They also did this with Ming the Merciless in the mid-90s Flash Gordon cartoon (I didn't have much taste back then but even I could tell that one was a pretty dire cartoon) and that's interesting because he's already a space alien... albeit one with extremely Asian elements to him. So I guess green was supposed to be some sort of terribly thought out racism band-aid.

And James Bond Jr. did this with its own "original" take on the villain Dr. No, who instead of some half-German/half-Chinese scientist guy with metal hands, was a Chinese Imperialist villain stereotype with metal claws.

"Let's just turn him green" was certainly a popular way of putting racist Asian stereotypes in cartoons in the 90s.

 

[Jeanie]

Oh wow, Force Works, now there's a name I haven't thought of in decades. For those who don't know about this incredibly 90s team, back then Avengers comics were... not like they are now. You had on the team heroes like Hercules and Black Knight and they all wore brown jackets. But there was also the West Coast Avengers who had all the good characters like Hawkguy and Mockingbird, Scarlet Witch and Vision, Iron Man and War Machine, you know, all the ones that are in the movies. Then Marvel cancelled it and tried to make it more 90s by relaunching it as something more X-Treme with people like Jingoistic Captain America replacement, a really bad costume and buzz cut for Scarlet Witch, the Julia Carpenter Spider-Woman, War Machine, and new guy Century who was quickly forgotten when the series didn't even make it a year got cancelled because of The Crossing, which oh god.

Edit: oops, I just checked, it made it past a year but not quite two.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Worth noting, Force Works was by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning who... aren't they considered decent writers? I don't think I've read anything they've done (though I have Annihilation sitting on my "to read" pile) but I remember people seemed to like at least some of their comics. Or are they like Fabian Nicieza who can be competent and even good but also has a ton of trash (and questionable plots, like the time he made Mach One black) under his belt.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Wasn’t Force Works revived somewhat recently?

The name still sounds like a special effects company.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

It came back for the 2020 event of Dan Slott's Iron Man run, I believe, in which he's like "Oh, hey, its 2020. Lets do something with Iron Man 2020".