Posts Tagged ‘animation’
Marvel Cartoons Even I Haven’t Heard Of
As a Geek Gold Gold member and Marvel dork, I was surprised to find out that there are Marvel cartoons even I haven’t heard of. Note that I didn’t say Marvel cartoons I haven’t seen. I haven’t seen every animated work the House of Ideas has produced (usually with partners). That said, I figured I had heard of all of them.
I was wrong. Wrong! So very wrong.
Below is a link to a fun article from CBR, aka Comic Book Resources, discussing 15 “forgotten” Marvel cartoons. (Not to split hairs, but they clearly aren’t forgotten if you wrote an article about them!)
Since I love me some superhero animation, and I know you do too, here is a quick rundown of the shows I’ve seen and the ones I haven’t.
SEEN BY ME
Spider-Man Unlimited: Very odd show. Spidey goes to “Counter-Earth” to save John Jameson and winds up staying there because reasons. Kind of hard to search for because there is now a game with the same title. Here’s the series on Amazon.
Silver Surfer: The animation in this series is absolutely beautiful, and the rest of it is good too. Very epic and features a clever mix of traditional and computer animation. Worth seeking out. Here’s episode 1 on YouTube.
Black Panther: Very very good series that probably was doomed from the start because it’s a “motion comic”. However, as the CBR article points out, the voice talent is stellar (Djimon Hounsou, Kerry Washington, and Alfre freaking Woodard, along with a very dramatic Stan Lee cameo), and the material (based on Reginald Hudlin and John Romita Jr.’s excellent comics) is strong enough that it worked for me. Check it out on Amazon.
Spider-Man: The New Animated Series: I have a soft spot for this 2003 series because it aired just after the 2002 Spider-Man movie and was kindasorta a continuation of it. Also, here’s your main cast: Neil Patrick Harris as Peter Parker, Lisa Loeb as Mary Jane Watson, and Ian Ziering as Harry Osborn. Name another cartoon with Lisa Loeb. You can’t. (That doesn’t mean she’s never done another cartoon, it just means you can’t name one.) And Ian Ziering? Is this “Spider-Man: 90210”? It was 2003, we wore onions on our belts, and the writing was pretty good. Free on Amazon with a Prime Subscription, which you can try for 30 days FREE right here.
Fred And Barney Meet The Thing: Apparently there is an episode where The Thing meets Bigfoot. I need to see that. Thing Ring, do your thing!
Iron Man: Armored Adventures: Solid story-telling overcomes a premise that shouldn’t work but totally does, which is Iron Man as a teenager. Amazon link here.
Spider-Woman: I’ve seen a couple of episodes of this series. I think the same creative team moved on to do a Spider-Man series which eventually became the ever-awesome Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. Don’t quote me on that, though. The animation style and overall look/feel are very similar.
Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes: Not good. Just didn’t work.
Avengers: United They Stand: Very odd series. Most of the better known characters (Iron Man, et al) aren’t there. As for oddness, all of the characters have “Avengers flight belts”… including Falcon. Falcon’s whole thing is that HE CAN FLY. Why does he need a flight belt? Not one of the better Marvel cartoons. Of course, I watched it anyway.
UNSEEN BY ME:
Dracula: Sovereign Of The Damned: Sounds weird enough that I might check it out. I also really like Marvel’s version of Dracula.
Marvel Anime: Not my thing. All I can find online are clips here.
Monster Of Frankenstein: Doesn’t sound much like a Marvel movie but as with Dracula above, it sounds entertainingly weird.
Pryde Of The X-Men: How I’ve never seen this, I have no idea. I’ve heard so much about it that I feel like I’ve seen it. Wolverine is inexplicably Australian. Someone told me that they kept airing the pilot over and over again, teasing viewers that a series would eventually show up. Technically it did — X-Men: The Animated Series. Can we get an Honest Trailer? We can!
Solarman: Who?
Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers: Apparently this was some unholy mashup of Avengers and Pokemon. Sure, why not.
Everybody remembers the ’90s X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons, but do you remember these ones?
Source: Marvel Superheroes: The Most Forgotten Comics Cartoons (CBR)
Related articles (Note: These are offsite links; DaddyTips takes no responsibility for outside content.)
Steven Universe is a Thing
Apparently the cartoon Steven Universe is a thing that we should be aware of.
I wasn’t until this article, and I’ve only skimmed it so far. The headline, “Steven Universe is the most delightful, sex-positive show on television” was enough to get my attention as I was reading about the Oregon militia standoff (a much more depressing news story).
I don’t watch cartoons as much as I used to. Part of that is because my children have gotten older, although I watched plenty of cartoons before I had kids. (Simpsons anyone? Batman Beyond? Heck, how about Thundarr?) Animation quality has declined over the past few years; I don’t mean the shows themselves, I mean literally the quality of the animation. Computers have made it easier and cheaper to produce cartoons, and I prefer the older stuff. That alone isn’t enough to put me off animated series, though. Several people have told me I should be watching Rick and Morty (not a kids’ show), and in general writing will trump animation for me — that is, even if something is impeccably animated but the writing stinks, I doubt I’ll watch it, but if the animation is only so-so while the writing is stellar, I might.
So I admit that I’m posting a link to an article about a show that I’ve never seen. That said, maybe it’s good, and maybe we should all be watching Steven Universe.
I did watch this video, and the song is pretty catchy. Check it out:
The internet’s favorite cartoon is weird, fun, and nuanced.
Source: Steven Universe is the most delightful, sex-positive show on television – Vox
Related articles (Note: These are offsite links; DaddyTips takes no responsibility for outside content.)
Hug Him And Squeeze Him And Call Him George (Video)
You’ve probably heard the line “I will hug him and squeeze him and call him George.” As I just wrote on Facebook, teaching it to my children is one of my great accomplishments as a parent. (Remember, quoting yourself may be tacky, but it makes fact-checking much easier.) I always thought the line came from a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Now I’m not so sure.
I might even have the line wrong. If so, I’m not the only one.
What follows is a condensed version of my attempt to figure out where “I will hug him and squeeze him and call him George” came from, which led me down a big Internet rabbit hole (pun intended) of cartoons, John Steinbeck, and other stuff.
At first the Internet seemed to be telling me that the cartoon in question was “The Abominable Snow Rabbit”.
In the video above, the line is, “I will name him George, and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him…” Not an exact match, but very close. (Daffy Duck has a great line as well: “I know I’m a louse. But I’m a live louse.”)
Then I stumbled across an intriguing tidbit: “The Abominable Snow Rabbit” is an homage to John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men
OK. Sure. Why not?
However, according to the Internet there are many cartoon homages to “Of Mice and Men
Really. There are.
Here is “Lonesome Lenny”, a 1946 Tex Avery cartoon, described thusly on IMDB: “Screwy Squirrel is bought in a pet shop to be the companion of a daft dog so strong that he squeezes his playmates to death.” Well all righty then. The dog’s name is Lenny, and he calls his new pal George. (Lennie and George are the main characters in “Of Mice and Men.”)
(Tip of the hat to the folks on this AWN forum page for pointing me towards “Lonesome Lenny”.)
But there is another Tex Avery short, “Of Fox And Hounds”, released in 1940, that is also an “Of Mice and Men” thing. This is where the immortal line “Which way did he go, George? Which way did he go?” came from. (I taught that one to my kids as well. I’m an awesome dad.)
(Hat tip to LanguageHat.com. No pun intended that time.)
Research note: Lest anyone think that my sources are limited to Wikipedia and pages I found via The Google, here is a link to The New York Times’ review of the 1939 film version of Steinbeck’s book (starring Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney, Jr.), which states that “Of Mice and Men
“Of Fox And Hounds” seems to be the first animated homage to “Of Mice and Men
Lennie, George and rabbits are apparently quite the thing. Who knew?
What did we learn? A lot. Haven’t answered my original question. But that’s OK.
(Thanks to the Facebook friends who inspired this post.)
Classic Looney Tunes – YouTube.
