Two Years Later

2009 just flew by, didn’t it? Did I accomplish much starting from my first post at the beginning of last year? Nope, not as much as I’d like. 2008 was like 2009, except I was even more preoccupied with other things in 2009 and made hardly any posts. I hate myself that I can’t get to this place more often. As I have stated before, there are always so many things on my mind to write about, but no time to focus. I’m nowhere near where I want to be in this project, and I really thought I’d be farther ahead by now when I started two years ago. Not a blogging superstar mind you, but I’m not getting the traffic I hoped for. I know I have no one else to blame but myself.

I have thought several times just to give up and shut down, but I still think I have a lot of valid points about a lot of things, subjects that other animation related blogs aren’t covering. I wouldn’t want to throw away all that effort, but me being extra slow with my postings doesn’t help any. 2010 already isn’t looking much different with the amount of free time I have to spare.

I’m ticked I haven’t gotten more done, because at this rate I’ll still have material to cover ten years from now, and I’d like to keep up more on current news. I really need to get back to reviewing Disney cartoons as well (on hiatus now for a year). I’m not the same person as when I started this endeavor, so I sincerely hope that part of me that still wanted to write about cartoons is alive because it is going to be harder to write like I wanted to write many years ago, when I had several ideas. I just get so depressed that I can’t get them out, and the traffic isn’t great, so why bother? Is anyone listening? Well if you read this post, I know you are. Hopefully 2010 will be a better year. Third time is the charm, after all.

Damn Format Wars

Fuck Blu-ray. There, I said it; I said what some people think.

Format wars are nothing new in the world of entertainment and electronics. Beta vs. VHS, VHS vs. DVD, DVD vs. HD DVD, and so forth. So in actuality, I shouldn’t be angry at all about Blu-ray, but I am.

Every format improves on the one before it. The biggest change in this decade was the move from VHS and VCR’s to DVD’s and their players. Not even the best VHS or S-VHS tapes and machines could playback as clear and as vividly as the cheapest DVD and the most economic model of players. The 2000’s can be looked at as the DVD collector’s generation. Before this, yes you could buy VHS box-sets of your favourite shows, but DVD’s were so much better not only in picture and sound, but in storage capabilities as well – more room to fit more media, smaller in size than a VHS tape and easier to store. This decade saw a great deal of people turn the cable television off, and load up on season after season of their favourite shows to watch what they want when they want. During this time, thousands of animated movies and television shows were released. And of course because it’s on DVD, it has great clear picture and sound over your old VHS tapes, plus some may even stack bonus features and such. So like a consumer sucker, I bet you re-bought all of your old Disney and other movies on DVD, right? Thinking it would be the last time you’d have to replace all your favourite titles. And perhaps you bought a lot of television cartoons available for the first time on DVD, never thinking something else would come along and replace the format. Because DVD’s were so good, right?

Wrong. Blu-ray and the entire flat screen TV movement burst down the door, putting your DVD’s to shame and giving you even better picture and stronger more cleaner sound and even more storage capacity. This is where I have a problem. It seems like DVD’s weren’t even out that long before this new disc came to retail. When you go shopping, either for Christmas or on Boxing Day/Black Friday, it’s impossible not to notice the mass amounts of DVD product out there at stores like Best Buy, Future Shop, Wal-Mart, HMV, etc. So many titles…how is every single one going to get re-released on Blu-ray in the coming years? The answer is, some will not. Much like how there are still lone VHS movies and such that never got a DVD treatment, the same will be for DVD’s many years down the road that won’t see a Blu-ray release.

For those titles that do get re-released on Blu-ray, you’re getting boned if you want to re-purchase everything. Remember that the seller of a product, at the end of the day, only wants your money. Your hard earned dollars you slaved away for. As a “re-buyer”, you will pay out of your butt to get all of those old DVD titles on Blu-ray again, because they look 1000 times better on your new big flat screen television that will also be outdated in a couple years. You now look back on how much you paid for your DVD’s brand new, and how you lost money. This format change could be good for people content with their DVD’s. As titles that have been out for several years get older, and warehouses are stacked with crates of unsold and aging product, you can see prices finally drop. I recently discovered the Animaniacs collection of full season DVD’s released from 2006-2007 finally drop in price from an average of $45-55 CDN to $18-28 CDN. Why? It’s an aging title, everyone who wanted it owns it already, and corporations want to sell off their stock to make way for new products.

I guess I shouldn’t be cross at Blu-ray because unlike VHS vs. DVD, we are just dealing with plastic disc vs. plastic disc, not a bulky old cartridge more prone to wear vs. plastic disc. There is hope for backwards compatibility for DVD and Blu-ray. Where I do get ticked, however, is that a lot of animated titles don’t really benefit from the advancements Blu-ray offers. For your big budget 3-D CGI animated features released in the last ten years, yes I’m sure it makes a difference. But for older 2-D movies that were already put through the remastering ringer for a DVD release, how much more can you possibly squeeze out of an older film before you start to make it look like something it was never supposed to look like? Older television cartoons have nothing to gain by getting released on Blu-ray – the DVD medium is good enough for them. DVD provides what VHS lacked, and that should be good enough…we hope.

In the end we all seem to be victims of the fast movement of technology, and companies that want us to buy their products. They could re-package some old television cartoons on Blu-ray to make them look cooler, when in fact they looked fine on the DVD release. If they don’t re-release them, you are left with a DVD copy. And depending on the life span of the DVD market, you could very well find yourself without a DVD player many years down the road. Unlikely, sure, but you have to adapt or die in this environment. You have to keep re-buying what you bought so you can always have a fresh product and player to play it on. One reason why some people, like myself, have started stacking up on VCR’s – they are dead technology but still have a dedicated following. The key to “winning” this fight is to wait many years until a title you want becomes old, and buy it on sale/clearance, but buy before the format is at the end of its life cycle. Sure all your friends bought and enjoyed it years ago, but they paid a lot more money. Being patient will save you precious dollars in the end, moreover if you buy a lot of DVD’s. Heh, and if you’re not happy with that, go online and download a torrent and burn your own format! For only the cost of blank discs!

Blu-ray thinks it is king of the block for now, but you and I know someone else is coming to knock him off the boulevard soon enough. It’s happened before, it will happen again.

Avenue Q

Grow up on Sesame Street reruns? Ever wonder what it would be like to put puppets from a show like that in adult situations? Then I’ve got a ticket to a Broadway show that you, my friend, should be seeing…spoilers may follow.

I just came back from seeing a local production of Avenue Q that was presented at The Center In The Square. This musical is friggin’ awesome, I loved the numbers. I was completely satisfied with it and the ending was perfect, in my opinion. No happy ending, just a “for now” ending…it’s a grown up Sesame Street, and to be linked to that and make it for older audiences is a great combo. This is my first time seeing a musical live, and I don’t partake in theatre often – I may just watch more stage productions if they were done by puppets/muppets. It would make it much more appealing for me after seeing Avenue Q.

The cast for this version all sang and acted well, and I really have to give them props for their double acting. Not only do they have to “act” themselves, the people hosting puppets with their arms also have to “act” for the puppet. It’s a weird mix because as the viewer you’re sometimes not sure who to watch, however it’s a joy to watch how they move around the stage with their puppet so flawlessly as if they were on set recording an episode of a kids show. The person who played the character of Christmas Eve was over the top in this production, making good on the “rrrrrr”’s, and the person playing Kate Monster (as well as Eve) had excellent singing voices, moreover at high pitches. I have to say what really impressed me though overall about Avenue Q was the production. The set was well built and efficient as all scenes worked perfectly with changes, and the nightmare “propose” scene was nuts! The use of televisions to display other visuals was a creative move. I could not believe at one point the cast ran off the stage to ask for money, some guy in the audience threw in five bucks. And that one scene…well, it put Team America’s version of “puppet love” to shame!

I’d say the only distraction is the whole humans talking to “human puppets” who also talk to “monster puppets”. I tried to focus on the puppets alone but the actors are doing their part as well. I recommend going to see Avenue Q if it’s playing near you, and hopefully your cast does as good as a job as ours did. I think I’ll pick up the cast recording.

Teletoon At Night

What the hell, Teletoon? I mean no disrespect, but seriously – why change the long standing name of your adult block from The Detour to this horribly lame title? Teletoon…at night? It’s bland, and so are the shows airing in the block. Remember when Teletoon showed satisfying “adult” cartoons several years ago, and not just the same stuff everyone else aired? The set of shows they consider “adult” these days is dismal, they are too tame to really be considered anything more than the average “cartoon for an older audience” stuff you’d see in usual primetime hours on Fox or Global. This line-up runs Monday to Friday:

9pm – Futurama
9:30pm – King Of The Hill
10pm – American Dad
10:30pm – Futurama
11pm – Robot Chicken
11:30pm – King Of The Hill
12am – American Dad
12:30am – Futurama
1am – King Of The Hill
1:30am – American Dad
2am – The Critic
2:30am – Tripping The Rift
3am – Sons Of Butcher

Several things are wrong with this line-up. First off, the shows. Futurama: already aired on YTV (recently no longer does). King Of The Hill: already aired on The Comedy Network (recently no longer does), and still airs on Omni2. American Dad: still gets a fair bit of airplay on Fox. All three of these shows have been seen a million times over by the public, and all have widespread DVD releases by seasons, and lots of downloads floating around the Internet. These shows are popular and will be in rotation in some form or another for years on television and in your DVD player. Why not air something that’s unique alongside Robot Chicken? Something that has a hard to find, or no, DVD release perhaps? Your best offerings here get airplay nowhere else but on your network these days: The Critic, Tripping The Rift, Sons Of Butcher…are in a timeslot where most are sleeping the night away.

Secondly is the repetitiveness. It would be passable if each triple serving of the shows mentioned above were different episodes each time (lord knows each have enough episodes), but they aren’t! Watch the King Of The Hill episode in the 11:30pm timeslot, and it will be the same episode airing at 9pm the next day. I hate it when networks do this, because I have to pick and choose when the best time is to watch the show, so I don’t run into repeats the next day. If you watch a lot of Teletoon and are a teen/adult, chances are you’ll be watching at 9pm till maybe just after midnight – which means you get a double shot of three already overplayed shows. I don’t understand the reasoning behind this – this isn’t an “adult” block by any stretch. It’s a pitiful primetime party, leaving people that want to watch something a little more entertaining to stay up at least to watch The Critic. And that is the third thing I cannot stress enough – an “adult” block on an “all animation” network should offer things I can’t view anywhere else, and the content should be up for people over 18 years of age. Is that really asking too much, Teletoon? Believe or not, Canada is full of teens, 20somethings and 30somethings and beyond that are craving for something more, and are currently starving on the scraps you offer – what you consider to be adult animation.

And after all is said and done…The Detour itself…still exists. On weekends at least. It’s puzzling to have two adult blocks on one network. A topic I’ll cover another time.

He’s Dead…Chowder’s Dead

And so goes the lifespan of an animated series.

It seems just like yesterday I ranted about Chowder, which was getting glowing reviews from the cartoon viewing populace when it premiered in 2007. A fresh, upbeat show for Cartoon Network. It was a hit among viewers in the US, despite getting a good shaft on Canadian television airwaves. When it did finally land on Teletoon a year later in the fall of 2008, it was only airing Saturday mornings at 11am and Sunday mornings at 5:30 in the morning. It never had a chance to gain a fanbase here at all with a weekly timeslot, and currently only airs here Saturdays at 6:30am. That’s pathetic, to say the least – Teletoon has garbage cartoons scattered in their line-up, and they take a show as creative as this and shove it where no one is looking.

From what I can tell, Chowder is a victim of two things – starting strong and bad timing. When the show premiered, it premiered with a lot of buzz and started off strong, and did very well for Cartoon Network initially. The problem with starting off with such a perfect formula, is where do you go if you start at the top of your game? I haven’t had the chance to watch much Chowder due to when it airs here, and my lack of time to find new episode downloads online, but from what I can gather the show seemed to suffer from repetitiveness and characters personalities straying farther away from their original traits as episodes progressed. If I ever get a chance to sit through the series I could be wrong, but sometimes writers can run dry on good ideas quickly if they use their entire arsenal early on to fire shot after shot of good episodes in a short time.

While this is aging news, and a topic I still plan to cover, Cartoon Network changed their branding to include live-action programming earlier this year, a move that has baffled most viewers and long time fans of the network. Chowder is just coming up on being two years old, however it was already stated on creator C. H. Greenblatt’s blog in May 2009 that they were working on the final Chowder episode. It was stated here that the voice cast recorded their lines for the final episode. While people were hoping the series would get picked up again, things of this nature rarely happen in the animation industry, save for Family Guy. It was pretty much confirmed a month later on Greenblatt’s blog that Chowder had no place in the network’s future. I don’t get Cartoon Network here in Canada, but I hope at least the series is getting promoted well enough there, that the second season gets some positive ratings. I always thought a crossover episode with Chowder and the characters from The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack would have been great, but that will never come to be.

Yes, fans can be angry at Cartoon Network for canning such a good show, only to promote live-action crap no one wants. But in a way, perhaps Chowder ending now is all for the best (?). Most cartoons air for many years to achieve the laughs Chowder got in its short run – isn’t it better for it to end now instead of being dragged out for years and years? Hopefully Cartoon Network doesn’t take forever in airing new episodes. It should also be noted that it’s a rarity when an animated series has a proper ending episode. From what I can tell from Greenblatt’s notes on what the last episode is about, I’m sure the last serving of Chowder will provide you a warming impression that will leave you with a satisfied feeling of a belly that is full.

I Wish I Could Stop Time

Forgive me, readers of this blog, for I know there are a few out there. I’ve been in a real funk lately about many things, and no surprise, have been kept busy and away from posting here as much as I’d like to. I can barley make a post each month, which is horrible as I just can’t collect my thoughts properly to make a good entry – no time. As I sit back and watch 2009 roll on, all I see is change (online and in real life) and many things never being the same again as they were as we enter a fresh decade.

Firstly, is the progression of Flash in websites and the constant revamping of many websites that didn’t need revamping at all; I wish things could be kept simpler, but some douche always thinks they can make something better even though the original concept is fine. I won’t go into details about each, but I hate how Hotmail changed its interface last year. AutoTrader.ca is worse to navigate and pictures don’t always load now as they use a Flash system to display them. Ebay has updated their viewer for pictures too, along with their layout, and I don’t like it. Flickr had a great browsing layout before, where I would see usernames and dates of pictures posted foremost. Now they have a newer Flash based way of going through search results with tiny thumbnails. The worst of all is the new YouTube channel layout – keep it simple, stupid! The older one was far easier to get through, and the newer one is just unnecessary and in my opinion, a real pain in the ass.

Secondly, is the deterioration of television animation and its networks over the past couple years; 2009 proving to be the worst year yet thus far in North America. This is a subject I’ve been meaning to get to for a long time, but its going to be an extensive rant. Saturday morning cartoons are non-existent now, long standing networks like Cartoon Network recently changed their format to include live-action programming, Flash cartoons domineer the landscape and offer cheap entertainment on a small budget. We have lost the art of character design, proper looking backgrounds, and even good sounding opening themes and scores. I have a strong feeling television animation is headed for the dark and dismal place it once crept from during the 1970s on through till the mid 1980s. Of course, I’m not a kid anymore, and it could just be me on the old “things were better back in my day” kick. But when you really sit back and take a look at the picture as a whole…things were better back in the day. Things, at least in Canada, were better even five years ago. Even animation here has sloped down a slippery path of disappointment, manufacturing shows that are instantly forgettable. The networks that air these cartoons have followed suit – if I had the power to make a new 24-hour channel dedicated to animation here, I would. Because Teletoon sure isn’t what it used to be, and that is a sad fact.

GeoCities Is No More

Well not quite yet, but almost.

Earlier this year I had talked about the death of the fansite and free web hosting in a world full of up and coming “Web 2.0” technology and applications. While it’s to be expected that another free web hosting service would close due to the popularity of such things like blogs, I was very surprised when I heard Yahoo GeoCities would be shutting down in October 2009.

Yes, it’s a super old service. But it was long standing and popular for many years and triumphed over other free web hosting companies that died out years ago, due to being easy to set up and maintain. I never thought Yahoo would close GeoCities; but it again goes to show that in an ever progressing online environment that things never stay the same forever, and “Web 1.0” as we used to know it years ago is gone forever as this decade comes to a close. Websites are a dying breed, and if you want to express yourself you can use Blogger or one of the many social networking sites out there.

The thing I liked about GeoCities was even after a site died and the webmaster abandoned it, it still remained online many years after or never went offline at all. There are still websites ten years old on GeoCities that will now be gone. Better start saving old URL’s if you ever want to visit sites via The Wayback Machine, or copy and paste important information to your computer. My gripe with Yahoo doing this is because they are wiping out an entire catalogue of older information and media that people will no longer have access to. When you stop and really think about it, there are millions of old GeoCities sites still online. When I Google for certain things a fair bit of the results come from old sites on GeoCities. It was because the service was so popular and that several of their sites stayed online many years after they had died – it was one of the reasons people made them there in the first place.

Websites almost and above a decade old, dead, but still fun to look at and gain information and media from, will vanish. Once GeoCities goes a huge chunk of Internet will disappear forever. Now what will Google hit if I’m searching for something? A blog post and a Wikipedia entry? That sucks. GeoCities sites always got picked up well on Google search results. They were key to looking up older information Wikipedia articles may or may not have. Too bad Yahoo just can’t keep the service online as a library of sorts to reference things. It’s a shame we have to say goodbye to GeoCities, but it did last the public a great 15 years.

Michael Jackson: 1958-2009

There I was, ready to work on another blog post for this place, and Michael Jackson suddenly passes away. I’ll never forget where I was when I found out. I could say a lot of things many others have said before, but I’ll try and keep it brief. While the events were unfolding and I kept seeing “Michael Jackson Dead” on various television channels, I just could not wrap my head around it. It was like a bad dream. But it was happening, and there was nothing I or anyone else could do to stop it. It still seems unreal to me now. How we lost this epic performer so suddenly. He was truly gifted. All I can think of now is that brain of his – that one vessel of knowledge, that brain that housed the skills of a superstar and allowed him to sing and dance like no other…is gone, forever. He is no longer a living, breathing, human being. That brain is dead, taking with it his fantastic abilities. We have lost something great.

We live in the age of media frenzy. The word of his death was so incredibly rapid spread online and in the television news, that if you didn’t know by at least noon the next day you were looked at as a fool. It was massive, it already felt like old news by Saturday and the world had almost gone back to normal. Its horrible how he was so close to making a comeback, its criminal he be taken away from us now at such a pivotal moment in his career. I wanted to see if he could still sing and move like he used too. Only a month away, this would have been his first tour in the age of Youtube; surely many fans would have snuck recording devices into his concerts to catch a shot of the pop star doing his thing. It would have been great. Now that he’s gone, you suddenly realize his last album was released eight long years ago. So much has changed in the music world in that time and a new MJ record would have been an interesting thing to listen to, as he always tried to make something new and exciting. Now, all we have is his back catalogue. Who knew when that last record was released, Michael Jackson wouldn’t even make it out of this decade alive.

All of a sudden, his music is everywhere again. His merchandise is selling out. Fans all over the world are celebrating his numerous achievements. Please just don’t focus on Thriller and “Billie Jean” like the news tells you to, he had many other great albums and songs. Admittedly, it’s hard to listen to songs like “Gone Too Soon” and “You Are Not Alone” now without getting an awfully eerie and depressing feeling as if Jackson is singing about his own passing.

It’s hard to think a mere week ago he was still alive. Now he’s gone and more and more things get revealed from his past and present, good and bad, everyday. Now the media is saying he could have been saved. A little late for that now, don’t you think? I don’t think the world will ever fully know what killed Michael Jackson, much like how the world will never fully understand him and his odd, at times child-like, personality. Only Jackson knows Jackson. He will forever be a mystery to his legion of fans and the press that perused him. He was an influential legend in his own time. The king is dead; long live the king…of pop.

A Small Bug

Fellow readers and Bloggers, I need a question answered.

When I started this blog I used the current layout/template you see know and have used it ever since. Then one day, for no reason mid last year, I noticed the text spacing had changed, as if the entire thing got double spaced. There is too much gap between lines of text, post title and text, date and post title, pictures and text, and layout lines and text. At first I thought I had accidentally clicked something, but I never found the reason why it happened. I hate it as I don’t like the way it looks. I have another blog I use for testing that had the same layout, and it never had the issue. It looked fine – until I started switching templates one day just messing around testing styles. When I went back to this current template on my test blog, it too had the same issue with the spacing.

I’m frustrated because every single other blog I see that uses the same layout does not have this problem. Check out Animation Backgrounds, Nerd Armada, and Brad Goodchild Art to see what I mean. They have their text more closely put together, no big gaps anywhere. If anyone knows how to fix my issue, please let me now. And if it’s a change that has been made by Blogger for recent users of this template, and it cannot be fixed, please let me know that as well. Thanks in advance.

New Hotmail Sucks

Sorry for the severe lack of any new entries here, I’ve just been crazy busy over the past couple weeks, mostly with stuff not even relating to the computer. Just life in general keeping me busy, many errands, stuff with the car, and long shifts at work. As I’ve stated before, I have lots to write about, lots of notes, but no time to expand on them. I fear by the time I do actually have time to get my thoughts in order on certain subjects, my points will be dated and of no importance. Or I’ll forget what I was going to write about in the first place.

Anyway, I know this isn’t cartoon related, but I just want to let people know that since Hotmail changed over to their new interface late last year (as in forcing their new layout and wiping out the old one people were still using), I have hated every single minute of it. Even now in 2009, it’s a hassle, and I’m hoping someone discovers this post and realizes that there are still people ticked off by this horrid version of Hotmail to this very day. I have used Hotmail since October of 2000 and up till now it’s been a fantastic service. I could rant a detailed complaint about the new interface and list every single thing wrong with it, but every damn aspect of it is completely terrible. From the huge ads in the way, to not being able to see the entire title of my e-mail subject anymore (sucks for large resolution users like myself, we all don’t have wide flat screen monitors), to the way I have to load attachments now in the same window (making the area where you write your text super small), to all the annoying “clicking” it makes from loading pages and ads, how it lists and displays address’ in your address (“To:”) bar and automatically boxes them when you leave spaces, how it shows me a dialogue box warning me when I leave writing a mail that navigating away from this page without sending it will discard it (duh!), how it doesn’t highlight the last mail you viewed anymore when you backspace from reading the last one (it also just refreshes to the top of the page), to how I can’t list the mail in the order I want it to (it resets to newest first when you log in), or how its slower and none of the better things it claimed it would be.

Microsoft took a great design and really screwed it up big time. I used to feel as if my inbox was a safe and secure place. It was tight and efficient. Now its wasting space in a lot of areas and I have ads everywhere. I don’t need this crap, but its all in the name of “progress” for MSN and Microsoft to make all of their services look the exact same interface wise. I’ve even had troubles with Hotmail freezing and crashing my IE browser now! I never had that problem before until now! I had at least two years worth of e-mails I wanted to clean out before Hotmail initially switched over, but I never had time. Now with this new interface it’s impossible! I can’t highlight text anymore in e-mails?! How blatantly stupid is that? Its so handy for me to copy and paste parts or whole e-mails when I need to reference them and use them, and now I can’t even do the smallest task of highlighting an e-mail by dragging my mouse over the text. If anyone out there reads this and knows of a solution, please tell me!

As for cartoons and this blog, I know I should get back on my Disney kick but it’s harder as time passes to get back into doing it. There are so many other issues at hand, like the recent controversy over Cartoon Network airing live-action shows and totally turning its back on their cartoon heritage. It’s not much better in Canada these days either, but that’s another story.

Links! Links! Links!

To coincide with my previous post about the death of the fansite, I thought I’d post up my collection of old comic/cartoon related Internet bookmarks to share with others who may not find these sites right away via search engines. What I have here is a fairly good list of fantastic fansites (even some official) that even though are old or very old, still provide useful content today.

Disney:
Calisota Online – Various research on old comics and cartoons, including family trees.
The Unofficial Disney Animation Archive – Like the title states, a site full of useful info regarding their animation.
Dizpins – News and info for pin collectors.
Goofy Und Max Fanpage – German fansite about Goof Troop/A Goofy Movie, also available in English.
Russian CDRR Portal – A Russian Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers fansite.
The Acorn Cafe – A long standing forum for fans of Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers.
The Weekenders Shrine – The only fansite I know of for The Weekenders.
UltimateDisney.com – An excellent site to keep up with the latest DVD releases.
Indy’s Ranger Museum – An old Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers fansite.

Nickelodeon:
BadBadRubberPiggy.com – Invader Zim fansite.
Presseservice Nick – I think its official, contains high quality promotional artwork. German.
The Rocko Zone – Super oldschool Rocko’s Modern Life fansite.
Room With A Moose & Gir – Invader Zim fansite.
The Amazing Invader Zim Website – Invader Zim fansite.
The Unofficial Rugrats Online – I cannot express how immensely thankful I am for this site. I learned so much about Nicktoons and Nickelodeon in general, even found out interesting things about Canadian television going back many years. It’s huge, and I highly recommend taking the time to look through it. Its simple and well laid out, and covers everything Nickelodeon you can think of up until September 2003, the last time it was really updated overall (save for some minor things in September 2005). It was handed over to new ownership in May 2007. I find it a real damn shame this site isn’t updated anymore (I still remember visiting it when it was up-to-date), but it proves to be a time capsule source of information to this day.
The Zimdex – Invader Zim fansite specializing in wavsounds from the series (Man, wavs are such a 90’s things to me now. I remember a lot of websites back then showcased huge amounts of wavs from various television shows and movies).
Don’s Hey Arnold! Site – The first Hey Arnold! fansite online since 1997, provides lots of info. Check out his main page for more links.
Sheltered Shrubs – Also from the webmaster above, a well done As Told By Ginger fansite.
The Unofficial Hey Arnold! Site – A well done Hey Arnold! fansite.

Sega/Sonic:
Tails.Kicks-Ass.Net – May look primitive by design, but this is an excellent site specializing in lots of downloads, including all the comics and television shows. Also has loads of fanart too.
BumbleKing Comics – This Side of Mobius – An informative forum about the latest Sonic The Hedgehog comics.
Fans United For SatAM – A long running fansite for the Saturday morning Sonic The Hedgehog series.
Planète-Sonic – A French Sonic The Hedgehog fansite, I wish it was in English because its well done.
Sonic Gear – A site tracking down and showcasing all available Sonic related merchandise all over the world.
Sonic HQ – One of the oldest Sonic The Hedgehog fansites, last updated in March 2008, but hasn’t been up-to-date since March 2007. Still provides relevant info.
Sonic The Hedgehog – Archie Comics’ official blog for the latest Sonic The Hedgehog comics.
Sonic-Gif – The biggest fansite providing Sonic related animated gifs.
The Sonic World – A long running Sonic The Hegdehog fansite.
The Sonic Staduim – Another long running and likely the most popular and up-to-date Sonic The Hedgehog site, features plenty of info and multimedia, well organized.
TeamArtail – Where Sonic fanartists submitted fanart for years before Deviantart was created and grew to take over for a popular place for submitting art. Had a huge gallery online for years featuring almost ten years of fanart that went offline sometime over 2008, along with the newer gallery created in 2006. Hasn’t really been updated in years, but for a while was a main source for Sonic X screengrabs when the series was current. Also has other downloads as well.

Simpsons:
Bart, The One And Only – Decent Bart Simpson fansite.
Just D’oh It – Excellent Simpsons fansite from the UK.
Last Exit To Springfield – A long running Simpsons fansite, featuring over 70,000 screengrabs from every episode.
Springfield Shopper – A great German fansite, nicely laid out and has lots of info.
The Simpsons Folder – Before Wikipedia this is where you could find the latest promotional pictures. Also features screengrabs from The Tracey Ullman Show era.
The Simpsons Archive – An extremely detailed site featuring a lot of info.

Miscellaneous:
Sinconan – Chinese Detective Conan fansite.
All-conan.net – Japanese Detective Conan fansite.
Shogakukan Online – I’m fairly sure this is the official site for the Detective Conan magna.
Animated Lust – A long running site covering various things in animation, hasn’t been updated since March 2008.
Animation Insider – A great site with up-to-date news and info concerning animation all over the world.
Animation Magazine – I’ve never seen a paper issue of this magazine in Canada. Excellent site for news and info.
Animation World Network – Fantastic site with large archives, has been very helpful to me when looking for info about certain shows and movies. A lot of well written articles; if you’re an animation lover I urge you to good through the older articles for some good reads.
Cartoon Resource Website – Still updated as of this post, a long running excellent site for info and airdates.
Chilly Willy’s Sub-Arctic World – Online since 1997, a fansite featuring everything to do with the character Chilly Willy. Lots of content.
Cybersix Data Domain – Old fansite for the little known Cybersix animated series.
Craig’s Cybersix Page – Another old fansite for the series, well written with details about each episode.
The Cyber Space – Another old fansite for the series, sadly was never completed in its entirety.
Cybersix.it – An Italian Cybersix fansite focusing on the comics rather than the animated series.
DConan.de – German Detective Conan fansite.
Edogawaconan.com – Japanese Detective Conan fansite, has tons of desktop wallpapers.
Don Markstein’s Toonopedia – A vastly informative site covering many areas in animation.
Jerry Beck’s Cartoon Research – This man has done his homework, and his Animated Movie Guide is certainly an educational read through.
Lambiek.Net – A great site about European comics and their creators.
Never Forgotten: A Foster’s Home Fansite – Lots of content and neatly organized. Hasn’t been updated in over a year.
Annie Awards – The official site, like the “Oscars” of animation.
Planète Jeunesse – I’ve found this site very helpful when researching European cartoons. I liked their older layout as it was easier to navigate shows, so you may need to dig a bit to find what you need.
Sons Of Butcher – The official site for the adult Flash animated series and mock-rock band. Proudly Canadian.
Sooper Secret KND Production Site – I wish other cartoons had a site like this, as it shone a light on the behind the scenes events when Codename: Kids Next Door was a current show.
The Raccoons – Nostalgia Zone – Still online after many years, small and simple, but informative nonetheless.
The Unofficial Raccoons Home Page – Terrific fansite for the Canadian cult classic series The Raccoons.
The Walter Lantz Cartune Encyclopedia – Everything you ever wanted to know about Woody Woodpecker and his creator.
Tiny Toon Image Gallery Plus – Long since abandoned, but a long serving fansite for the series Tiny Toon Adventures.
The Big Cartoon Database – Another old site covering everything in cartoons.
Toon Zone – Another old site with up-to-date news and info, also a good place to find interviews from series creators/producers/directors.
Toonarific Cartoon Archive – Yet again, another long serving site about cartoons, but I’m not sure if it’s up-to-date.
Zeichentrickserien.de – Resourceful German site full of info, airdates and episode lists and guides for a lot of animated shows.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

As much as I’d really like to continue with my review of Disney shows, I have some other subjects that I’d like to address.

Before opening this blog, I created and ran many websites throughout the 2000’s. They were all fansites for various cartoons – Sonic Underground, Kid Paddle, and Hey Arnold!. They were all created and hosted on MSN Groups (previously named MSN Communities). The online world was much different back then and it’s fascinating to pause for a moment and analyze how rapidly the Internet has grown in a ten or even five year span. What we did online and how we looked for information online in 1999 is largely different now in 2009. With the closing of MSN Groups after 14 years of service, and them being moved to Multiply which is a “social networking” type of place; and me recently going through all my old Internet bookmarks removing old dead or offline sites, I have come to a realization: that the “fansite” as we used to know it, as of 2009, is gone.

Think about it. Think how much has changed over the Internet in a decade. Yes, websites popped up online as early as 1994/95, but now its 2009 and it’s not uncommon to still see a couple of websites from 1998/99/00 still online after all these years. It was around the late 90’s, in my opinion, where personal websites and fansites really took off. And now look at them – these websites are ten years old, and many are dead or very outdated, with very few being translated into the current time. The Internet is literally littered with abandoned webpages from years ago that show their age and how the Internet was “back in that time”. Back “in the day” a fansite is where you could go to get anything and everything you wanted about your favorite animated series. As far as I see it, those days are finished.

Fact one: Many companies that offered free web hosting services for websites have died or no longer offer free hosting. Remember the early 2000’s? Many places offered a certain amount of storage and bandwidth, etc, free of charge. Cityslide, Homestead, AOL Hometown, and now MSN Communities/Groups all closed (Cityslide gave up “free” hosting but still exists). FortuneCity, Tripod, Angelfire and Geocities still offer free web hosting, although I’m sure their popularity is waning these days. There are a great deal of other places that offer far more storage space, bandwidth, and most of all free blog templates. Take Multiply for example – you can currently upload as many pictures as you like without any restrictions and can easily change the layout. Why would you use a service where you can only upload a few megabytes worth of media and only have 2-3 megabytes of traffic per hour? Fact two: So many online services have been created over the past ten years that really, you don’t need your own fansite anymore. All you need is a main webpage that has links to all the other places/accounts your stuff is hosted or where you can find information.

Want older information on a show? – Online encyclopedias (Wikipedia): Their articles are sometimes the first or second hit in what you are looking for, moreover for a show that never gained much of a big online fanbase, therefore no fansites exist. Some shows even have their own fan-created Wikipedia-styled encyclopedia.

Want current news and information or more detailed older information on a show? – A blog (Blogger, Wordpress): They have grown massively over the past couple of years and many (like this one) provide information you couldn’t find anywhere else. More series creators/producers/directors, etc, have blogs these days to keep fans updated on current events, and to educate with their history and knowledge working in the business.

Want a place to chat about a show? – A forum/message board/chat room, or social networking websites (MySpace, Facebook, hi5, Windows Live Spaces, Windows Live Groups, Multiply, LiveJournal, Twitter): It’s usually pretty easy to find a forum/message board/chat room dedicated to your favorite show so you can talk to others who share your interests. Many social networking sites have groups dedicated to shows so people can join them and talk amongst other members.

Fanart? – Deviantart, Side7, Fanart Central, VCL, Fur Affinity, Imageboards (4chan, 7chan): Deviantart has been around for years and has gained a reputation for its large amount of fanart and conversation it showcases. Side7 not so much, but its still a decent place to find good artwork. 4chan and 7chan are also great places to find fanart as well, but are NSFW (not safe for work) at times and therefore I won’t link them here. Imageboards can also be a great place to chat with others about favorite shows and gain information as well.

Fanfic? – FanFiction.net: Like Deviantart, this place has been around for years as well and holds a ton of fan generated fiction for various shows.

Videos/Fan Videos? – Video hosting websites (YouTube, Veoh, Blip.tv, Break.com, Dailymotion, Google Video, AOL Video, Imeem, Newgrounds, LiveVideo, Hulu, Guba, Vimeo): Perhaps one of the biggest changes of all in the Internet in recent years, these places offer free video hosting. Users can post episodes, bumpers/commercials and special exclusives of their favorite shows, as well as fan made music videos, dubs, and animations.

Screenshots/Official Art? – Image hosting services (Photobucket, Flickr, ImageShack, Picasa), Imageboards (4chan, 7chan): These places offer free hosting for large amounts of pictures, and are handy for organizing them and being able to hotlink images for use on other websites and forums/message boards. 4chan and 7chan are also great places to find screens and promotional artwork for shows too.

Downloads? – File hosting/downloading services (RapidShare, FileFront, Megaupload, SendSpace, YouSendIt, Fliiby): Are handy for uploading entire episodes of shows and other related videos, mp3’s, fanart/fanfic, screenshots, official artwork, scanned comics – anything you can think of, you can find it at these places.

Other Links? – Google it. Or check the “Links” page of the Wikipedia article you’re reading, the website/blog you’re visiting, or check out links on forums, message boards and chat rooms.

See what I mean? Why have all this stuff on your website and pay for large space and bandwidth when you can put it up for free somewhere else and it gets noticed more? Face it people, the fansite as we knew it, is dead. MSN Groups closing last month is another sad progression to technology geared more towards social networking websites (What is it with all of them these days?! It’s almost impossible not to be tracked down. There is no privacy anymore!). It took MSN shutting this service down for me to realize “Holy fuck, 1999 was ten years ago!”, and I remember being online in high school back then and what it was like, and look at how hugely different the world wide web is now! Its nothing like it was...and I kind of miss the simplicity it had back then.

I guess if I ever continued work on my fansite projects, for the “information” portion, I’d start a blog about it. Really, it seems like the right direction to go. Blogs get noticed a lot in search engines and whatnot. They are a great place to find information and personal opinions. It may not be laid out like a website...but then again a lot of websites these days use a “posting like a blog” layout system which allows visitors to comment on the latest updates. Who needs a guestbook anymore these days, either? Or a fanlisting? Or a webring? One downside to having a different account for everything is remembering passwords and usernames. I have so many now I had to write them down.

A great deal of what I’ve stated here relates to “Web 2.0”, surprise-surprise Wikipedia provides a great article about the second generation of web development and design. What also makes “Web 2.0” interesting is that it takes a lot of work out of creating a website from the webmaster’s hands and places it in the hands of the people who visit the site. You just need to set up a service and people will start filling it with content for you. You don’t necessarily have to offer interesting stuff on your site anymore to get people to visit it, you just need to make a platform that gets people’s attention. Take Facebook or Youtube for example – the people who own those services don’t need to add any content; the users do for them…and in the process make the owners stinking rich!

I'm not sure if I like where the Internet is going these days, but there is nothing we can do to stop it. Its progression is fanatic. Its momentum is increasing. Its space is expanding. And the possibilities of what the Internet can provide are always growing. It will be intriguing to see where world wide web will take us, and the world, in another ten years.

One Year Later

Thought I’d break free from my current reviewing of Disney television animation for a moment to explain myself and what happened with the blog during 2008.

Fact is, very little happened. See, back when I created The Cartoon Couch Potato at the start of 2008, I was excited taking on a new project. I had so much to write about; opinions to express, cartoons to explore – I had several ideas swirling around in my head for what to post about. When I started in January I had more free time to focus on the blog, and I tried desperately to keep my posting pace up as my free time waned in the coming months. First I committed myself to at least four posts a month…then it became three…then two…then only one. And even then, I could barley commit myself to making even one single post a month, usually rushing it on the last day of each. If I had really slacked I could have gone six months without posting again, but that would have gotten me nowhere with gaining readers. I know my blog won’t get anywhere fast without frequent posting, and I know my 25 posts over 2008 is what most people post in a single month.

After starting to review Disney’s television cartoons, I wanted to stick to that only and not break topic. But at the current speed I’m going I won’t be done for another two to three years, and by then I will have missed a lot else to write about. I’m not even near the half way point with Disney, and I do apologize to readers that dislike my extremely slow pace. You have to understand I have a very busy life, and a seemingly endless list of other online and computer endeavors and tasks to attend to, some of them years old already. When all is said and done with me working on separate projects, I don’t get far per month, and am limited to one post a month here because I’m so insanely busy with 1001 other things. It sucks to see how positive I seemed to be when I started this blog, ready to set off for an adventure which would lead the blog to becoming very well known before the year ended. Due to my lack of activity, this blog is still barley known.

I still have many things to write about – scribbled down on pieces of paper and typed in documents. Sad thing is most of what I wrote doesn’t make sense to me now at all, as I’ve forgotten some of what I was going to write. And even when I do get to writing these ideas, they will already be so dated. I know my posts are slow coming, but you have to admit I deliver pretty long posts if I have enough to write about. That factor itself is a small problem, as it usually takes me so long to research and compile a single post and to proof read it several times before I post it, it usually takes me hours to get the job done. Even though I’m just as busy as ever and more behind than ever before (due to a virus a month ago causing me to reformat and loose two weeks time), I will try and post more here in 2009. Just don’t hold your breath.

Marsupilami (1993)

I’m going to have to take the Internet’s word on this one.

Seriously, I had no idea the Marsupilami shorts from Raw Toonage got spun off into their own series. Upon researching what Disney cartoon to write about next, I was surprised to find there was. But I have no recollection of it at all, and that’s rare for me because I pretty much remember every cartoon I’ve ever seen on television in my lifetime.

There’s also information lacking out there online about this 1993 series. I have no idea if it was a show full of new ideas and animation, or if they just threw some old Marsupilami shorts together from Raw Toonage to make a half hour series. If it was just a compilation of old stories, I more than likely wouldn’t post about it, but since I can find next to nothing about it, I’m just going wing it and mention it anyway.

It may surprise you to know that the Marsupilami character was not created by Disney, but was created in the 1950’s in Europe – a story I’ll save when I will eventually cover European comics. This spin off series premiered on September 18, 1993 on CBS, and was the third series not to be associated with The Disney Afternoon and never aired in the block (a trend with Disney cartoons that aired solely on CBS). It ran for 13 episodes and like Raw Toonage, it was a very short-lived series airing its last episode on December 11, 1993. As far as I know, no Disney comics based on the series were made, nor was any merchandise produced.

The last time this yellow jungle critter was seen in Canada was the last time it ever aired on CBS, because I can’t recall this show ever airing on Family Channel. Its opening theme song is a feisty little musical number, but pails in comparison to the great themes Disney put out only five years before. I sure don’t remember the opening sequence, and don’t remember the ending theme at all.

Bonkers (1993)

Swing…and a hit! A series about a popular cartoon movie star bobcat turned crime fighting cop was exactly what Disney needed to recover from their last two flops. Hold on tight – I’m about to hit you with some massively detailed notes about how this show came to be and what it’s all about.

Before even premiering as a half-hour program, the character of Bonkers starred in his own cartoon shorts on Raw Toonage called “He’s Bonkers”. In this first incarnation, he was in love with the Marilyn Monroe-ish Fawn Deer and paired up with his sidekick, Jitters A. Dog, often facing the villainy of Grumbles Grizzly. As stated in my previous post, these shorts represent his life as a toon movie star, before becoming a “has been” in Bonkers. The character’s intent for Disney was to have a fully-owned wacky character of their own, without all the licensing restrictions involved with re-using writer Gary Wolf’s and producer Steven Spielberg’s Roger Rabbit. His personality was obviously modeled after Roger Rabbit, and he even hails from “Toontown” and is partnered with a supposedly real-life detective, Lucky Piquel – whose predecessor having been Eddie Valiant from the 1988 feature film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. In this series Bonkers plays an out of work actor, given a second chance and made an official “toon cop”.

Its interesting to note that before Bonkers and Raw Toonage premiered (but were in pre-production and production stages), Bonkers was first seen in an animated short entitled Pedal To The Metal, originally shown in theatres before the film 3 Ninjas in 1992. This short was never included in Raw Toonage. I never saw it, so I have no idea if the animation quality differed from a television to a theatrical production. Bonkers originally premiered on The Disney Channel on February 28, 1993 with a new episode airing every week for several weeks. This was meant as a “preview airing” and showcased the Miranda Wright episodes. Its official debut was on September 4, 1993 with the hour long pilot “Going Bonkers/Gone Bonkers”, which was later spilt into a two-part episode in subsequent airings. Not only was Bonkers syndicated as part of The Disney Afternoon, but it also aired, out of all places, on Fox, and has been the only Disney cartoon to air on that network since. These episodes ushered in the Lucky Piquel era.

As stated, Bonkers originated from an attempt at a television version of the Who Framed Roger Rabbit film, which never reached production due to legal complications. As a result, the series created original characters in a world where “toons” and humans co-exist. Unlike the film that inspired it, however, Bonkers was entirely animated and featured no live action. Bonkers is a toon that fights crime and is paired up with a human partner, just like in the movie. He used to be a cartoon star, appearing in the Raw Toonage shorts which are cannon in the fictional Bonkers universe. The series lasted 65 episodes, airing its last episode on February 23, 1994; however other sources state December 21, 1995.

The chronological order of the series is somewhat complicated to follow. The “Miranda” episodes were produced first (excluding the two-part series premiere which featured Piquel and Bonkers meeting for the first time). This discrepancy becomes evident when observing the look of the main character in early and later stages – it’s easy to see with the clips used in the show’s opening credits. In the Raw Toonage shorts, Bonkers was orange with dark orange spots, golf club-like ears, and an undone tail. The “Miranda” episodes use his original look from that show, and occasionally featured episodes of cartoons from his days as a movie star, plus cameos from the Raw Toonage cast of characters. He was portrayed as a rather clumsy, somewhat foolish character that ended up being the show’s punching bag. When the “Lucky” episodes were made, the character had a major overhaul with skinnier ears, black spots, black Tigger-like stripes on his tail, and a different uniform. The “Lucky” episodes are more closely modeled after a Roger Rabbit style. He’s less of a buffoon and more of an inspector-type in control of himself (though still hyperactive), and carries an extensive knowledge about toons and their behavior (he is a toon himself after all), which is an asset in cases dealing with rogue toons. In these episodes, the Mad Hatter and March Hare from Disney’s 1951 film Alice In Wonderland make occasional appearances.

Are you with me so far? Good. Anyway, the first set of episodes featuring Miranda Wright came back from overseas animation studios looking less than spectacular. This caused the original team to be replaced, and only 19 episodes of this era survived to air. In “official continuity”, these episodes are shown towards the end of the series. When the new crew came in they threw out the premise of the old show and brought in Lucky Piquel – his episodes being revised and established to occur before the original 19 episodes, and 42 episodes of this era were made including “New Partner On The Block” which attempted to bridge the gap between the two somewhat contradictory storylines. That only makes 61 episodes; but other sources say 65 were made. So who is right and who is wrong? “New Partner On The Block” was a transition episode showing how Lucky was given an FBI job in Washington DC, and how Miranda Wright became his newest partner. The episode was much like the pilot episode using CGI rain and bringing back the characters that were associated with Bonkers, those characters being Fawn Deer, Jitters A. Dog, and Grumbles Grizzly and unlike the pilot had more speaking and screen time. Lucky, his wife and daughter and many other characters relocated as well, allowing them to be written out of the show. Remember – even though Wright is supposed to have replaced Piquel, and the episodes featuring her occur after the Piquel ones in the show’s “official chronology”, the Wright episodes were made first. Make sense now? Excellent, you’ve graduated from Bonkers 101.

Bonkers comics appeared in Disney Adventures; it was also one of the last cartoons to be featured in the Marvel-published Disney Afternoon comic book series. There was merchandising in the form of books, coloring books, action figures, pins, and Burger King toys. Three video games were released; Bonkers for Super Nintendo in 1994, and Bonkers for Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and Bonkers Wax Up! for Sega Game Gear/Sega Master System in 1995. While the rise of Bonkers as a Disney star did coincide with the decline of Roger Rabbit, Bonkers made nowhere near the impact Roger Rabbit did, mainly because his show lacked the melding of live action with animation which had audiences glued to their seats when Roger made his debut. Many barred Bonkers as just being a substitute or plain rip-off. While I’m sure this show grew to entertain many, I never saw a huge fandom come out of it, and Bonkers seems to have been forgotten when people think of that “classic” Disney era of television animation.

Bonkers in my eyes is underrated. It’s aged well and is one of my favorites – up there with Darkwing Duck and Goof Troop. One aspect you can’t ignore is the animation – Walt Disney Television Australia, who gained a reputation for bringing quality to their work for the shows they worked on, did a fantastic job with the episodes they animated (the Piquel era), and their style really fit the zany antics of this cartoon and breathed new life into it. Although I really should have known, I was surprised to find that not only did Jim Cummings voice Bonkers, but also voiced Lucky as well. He did a terrific job giving these characters the energy and expression they needed, and you have to give him props for playing two lead roles in one show.

The last time this problem solving duo was seen in Canada was on Family Channel, anywhere between the late 90’s and early 2000’s. I really can’t pinpoint it any closer but it has been many years since it aired here. Youtube doesn’t have much in the way of episodes but there are a few online. Its opening theme song (and ending theme) is a welcome return to form, and while it may not be as memorable as some other titles, it’s sure a catchy tune nonetheless, and was edited well with fast-pasted clips. Maybe it just needs another five years to grow more nostalgic? As the usual case, the singer is again unknown.

Raw Toonage (1992)

Swing and a miss!

Still falling from their high perch in animation set a few years prior, Disney’s next cartoon to follow the uneventful The Little Mermaid would in fact…well, fair even worse.

However, while Raw Toonage, which premiered on September 19, 1992 on CBS, didn’t last that long, I found it to still be a decent offering from Disney when I saw episodes of the series years later. Before that, I had almost forgotten the show had even existed, but it sat in the back of my mind for years and I knew there was a show called Raw Toonage but couldn’t quite remember it. Then the reruns started and it all came flooding back to me. It was the second series not to be associated with The Disney Afternoon and never aired in the block.

Raw Toonage was an experimental showcase for several animated shorts, kind of like a sketch show, which were hosted every weekend by a different popular Disney character. The four cartoons which regularly appeared in the show were “He’s Bonkers!”, “Marsupilami”, “Sebastian”, and a variety cartoon called “Totally Tasteless Video”. While an interesting format, Raw Toonage failed to achieve its purpose – but out of its ashes, arose the success of those shorts graduating to their own animated programs. “Marsupilami” and “Sebastian” were combined into Marsupilami, and “He’s Bonkers!” became Bonkers.

The idea for the show had an unusual genesis. At the time Disney was developing Bonkers, about a bobcat living in a “real world” that had once been the star of his own cartoon, and when it was canned became a policeman. The series dealt with his adventures post-stardom. At the same time, Michael Eisner had purchased the rights to the popular Belgian comic strip Marsupilami. At some point, someone had the post-modern initiative to actually make the cartoons that Bonkers would have starred in before becoming a policeman, and that’s how Raw Toonage was born. The additional segment “Totally Tasteless Video” was intended as a satire of popular culture, and not a proving ground for new stars. The host was added to give the series the familiar feel of The Wonderful World Of Disney show. Though it looked like the 1993 Bonkers series was spun off from the shorts, the reverse is actually true. Due to the shorter production schedule, Raw Toonage, with its “He’s Bonkers” shorts, was on the air before the 65 half-hour show, thus adding some credibility to the back story.

Contrary to what I originally wrote here about The Wuzzles, Raw Toonage actually stands with the lowest amount of episodes of any animated television program Disney has put out thus far, with only 12 episodes made – a thirteenth was in production but was never completed. It’s also the shortest run series, airing its last episode on December 5, 1992. There is no merchandise for this show that I know of, although I’m fairly sure it had comics published in Disney Adventures. I never saw a huge fandom grow from this show, but it does have its followers for those who remember it well. The series was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Writing in an Animated Television Production in 1993.

The last time this variety show was seen in Canada was on Family Channel in late 2001. Youtube is currently limited in what clips of the show it has available, a hinting of how forgotten it really is. Raw Toonage was a “strike two” behind The Little Mermaid in terms of performance – it even followed suit and also had a crappy opening theme song which basically had no lyrics and really wasn’t at all catchy or memorable (and is also very much a knockoff of the song “Oh Yeah” by Yello). It’s interesting to note that Webby from DuckTales makes an appearance in the opening credits, but never actually appeared on the show. Disney needed another homerun hit of a cartoon, and fast – because another strike could have put them out of television animation game for good.

The Little Mermaid (1992)

And…we’ve come down.

Off an extreme animation high, that is. Prior to this series Disney made hit after hit cartoon, and Goof Troop truly was the last great cartoon they managed to pump out during their prime years in television animation. All good things must come to an end though, and every company hits a snag now and then. Disney’s hot streak came to a halt with the premiere of this series.

That’s not to say The Little Mermaid, which premiered on September 11, 1992 on CBS, is a bad series. I just don’t have too much to say about it, and reminds me of The New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh in the sense that I never really thought much of this program. It doesn’t “fit in” with the rest of the crew – it was the first series not to be associated with The Disney Afternoon and never aired in the block. It was also the first Disney cartoon that was based off a previous successful theatrical film, and acts as a prequel to the movie of the same name which was released in 1989. It follows Ariel’s adventures as a mermaid living under the sea with her father, Sebastian and Flounder. Various episodes highlight her relationships with her friends, father and sisters, and usually involve her foiling the attempts of various enemies that intend to harm her or her kingdom.

The Little Mermaid premiered in prime time with the episode “A Whale Of A Tale” before being moved to Saturday mornings. It ran for a paltry 31 episodes, airing its last episode on November 26, 1994. Whereas many Disney cartoons before had major merchandising and published comics, there was minimal material for this series. I never saw much of a fandom grow from this program, and there’s not too much production information about it anywhere. I’m sure it was enjoyed by some kids back in the day, but personally I can’t recall even watching this series once all the way though.

A notable episode is “Metal Fish”, in which Ariel saves a human character named Hans Christian Andersen who is based on the real life author of the original fairy tale The Little Mermaid. The encounter inspires the character in the episode to “write” the story of The Little Mermaid. A voice-over at the end of the episode talks about the real Hans Christian Andersen, while the image on screen shows Ariel sitting on a rock in the style of the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen harbor. If this is to be chronologically accurate, it places the time frame in which this series takes place around 1836 when the story was first written, or shortly before 1837 when the story was actually published.

The last time this red-haired mermaid and her friends were seen in Canada was on Family Channel – when, I have no clue. It’s been a while though; I don’t think it’s aired since the late 90’s. I couldn’t find any episodes up on Youtube, which is another good indication that it wasn’t a really popular series. The Little Mermaid, I think, broke a long line in tradition – every Disney cartoon before had an upbeat, awesome opening and ending theme song, with lyrics. The opening theme song to this show was a combination of the songs “Part Of Your World”, “Under The Sea” and “Kiss The Girl” from the movie. And to make matters worse, it was the first Disney show to have a theme that was just instrumental. Boooooring.

Goof Troop (1992)

Premiering on September 7, 1992, Goof Troop was Disney’s eight venture into television animation, and the fourth show to revive old classic Disney characters into a new era, whilst adding new characters into the mix. The show is based on several classic 1950’s Goofy cartoon shorts which depicted him as a father to a mischievous, red-haired son. Additionally, prior to this series Goofy had already enjoyed an illustrious career in cartoons, playing many roles over the years, sometimes eclipsing Mickey Mouse with his outwardly loveable and “goofy” personality. In this series Goofy is still true to his old self, with a tinge of modernization for the current time. Producers picked up on the basic themes of his career and put Goofy as a single father, raising his son Maximilian “Max” Goof, who move back to their hometown of Spoonerville where Goofy becomes neighbours with his longtime friend/foe Pete (a classic Disney villain), who is married to his high school sweetheart Peg and have two children, P.J. (Pete Junior) and Pistol (all original characters).

The show establishes itself well with its portrayals of modern suburbanized life, and was pretty much the first Disney cartoon to do so. While shows like DuckTales, Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers and Darkwing Duck were indeed placed in a contemporary time, Goof Troop reflected its timeframe (the early 1990’s) in a truly genuine fashion, and didn’t mix elements of a classic time period or fighting villains into its setting or stories. It was basically a show about working-class people and families in everyday life. The series had a great mix of stories, meaning each and every character got a lot of screen time as different episodes focused on different things. Max and P.J. become the best of friends and do practically everything together. Max is dealing with the early onslaughts of puberty and growing up in the shadow of his goofy father. All the while Goofy reveals many facets of his personality, blissfully enduring Pete’s personal grudge against him. A large portion of humor from Goof Troop comes from Goofy unintentionally screwing up Pete’s plans (usually something to do with money and getting more of it), as well as Max’s relatively normal personality sharply contrasting with that of his father’s.

Goof Troop was a big hit with audiences, so much so that 78 episodes plus one Christmas special (basically 79 episodes) were produced, placing the series in third place behind Darkwing Duck and DuckTales for the most episodes in a Disney cartoon. I have no confirmed date as to when the last episode aired, because some sources state the series aired its last regular episode on December 5, 1992 (oddly enough the same day Darkwing Duck aired its last episode), others say December 5, 1993. The Christmas special was not aired until 1993. Like many Disney cartoons before it, Goof Troop was previewed with an hour long two-part special (serving as the show’s pilot) before the series itself premiered, with the episodes “Everything’s Coming Up Goofy” (Forever Goof Part 1) and “Good Neighbor Goofy” (Forever Goof Part 2) airing on September 5, 1992. The show’s first season, made up of 65 episodes, aired in syndication as part of The Disney Afternoon block. The second season, made up of 13 additional episodes, aired Saturday mornings on ABC (whether it was the fall of 1992 or 1993 I’m not sure at this time). The series was kind of aired like Darkwing Duck, with the next season aired on another network; although with the case of Goof Troop episode order was never messed around with.

Where many Disney cartoons failed, Goof Troop proved successful enough to warrant a full-length motion picture, produced by DisneyToon Studios who had worked on DuckTales The Movie: Treasure Of The Lost Lamp. Perhaps centered on the fact it was a modernized cartoon that displayed a good working model of a father/son relationship, Disney picked Goof Troop out of many other cartoons to have a theatrical film, as young viewers and their parents could relate to Goofy and Max. While Goof Troop has the honor of being the second Disney cartoon to be blessed with a theatrical movie (from Disney’s prime days of television animation), it really stands out by itself as unlike the DuckTales movie, this movie features characters from the television series Goof Troop but is not canon to the series. Peg, Pistol, the family pets, Goofy’s old house and car are gone, and it’s not known if they are still living in Spoonerville. A Goofy Movie was released in 1995, and overall was a successful film. So much so that in 2000, a direct-to-video sequel to this film titled An Extremely Goofy Movie was released, and faired good in sales. In these aspects, the Goof Troop franchise ended up being more successful than DuckTales, and to date has not been topped by any other Disney cartoon.

Goof Troop got the standard merchandising – Happy Meal toys, plush figures, books, stickers, coloring books, and videogames. Comic stories were featured in the magazine Disney Adventures from 1992-1996 as well as the Disney Afternoon comic book published by Marvel Comics. It’s worthy to note that the town of Spoonerville was named after layout artist J. Michael Spooner, who designed many of the background layouts for the series. Pete’s wife Peg is a play on “Peg Leg Pete”, one of Pete’s characters in the classic Disney shorts. Likewise, his daughter Pistol is a play on another such name, “Pistol Pete”. The most pressing question in the series however, is what happened to Max’s mother/Goofy’s wife? The fan theory is that she had died; this issue was never touched on in the series (but could be related to Goofy and Max moving back to their hometown at the beginning of the series), leaving many fans to draw their own conclusions. Goof Troop was also the first Disney cartoon to have more original animated clips in its opening credits other than just the title card – prior to this other shows just used clips from the episodes matched to music.

The last this goofy pair were seen in Canada was on Family Channel in September 2005; at time of its removal it was the oldest cartoon airing on the network (13 years), and was the constantly longest running premiering in September 1996 (9 years) airing twice a day. For me, Goof Troop is the one – it is my absolute favorite show from Disney’s classic days of television animation. I love this series, and really like the character of Max and how he was able to grow during the run of the franchise. It was my favorite show as a kid, and when I started regularly watching episodes on Family Channel in my late teens, I liked it even more. It aged well, albeit with it being so modern at the time it’s dated in areas (look at Max’s clothes for example, yikes!) but overall is still a strong performer in 2008. It’s hard not to like a program like this. Moreover, I feel Goof Troop was the ending on an era for Disney – it was their last great show from their superior years where they dominated television animation. Some say it was the last best thing to happen to The Disney Afternoon before it started to go downhill. By 1993 other networks were catching up with them in terms of popular shows, and Disney was slowly going in a different direction with their cartoons.

Another trait I feel Goof Troop had was a strong voice cast; it featured the best names in the business. Bill Farmer, who had been voicing Goofy (and still does) since 1986, Jim Cummings as Pete, Rob Paulsen as P.J., April Winchell as Peg, Nancy Cartwright as Pistol, and Dana Hill as Max. These fantastic voice actors gave much life to their respective characters. Sadly, Max’s distinctive voice would be lost forever come July 1996, as actress Dana Hill died from suffering a massive stroke related to her diabetes.

A DVD of the show was released in 2006 with a paltry three episodes and horrible box art – I don’t even acknowledge its existence, it’s that bad. One Youtube user has uploaded most of the series for viewing online. Of course the opening theme song (and ending theme) are awesome and have a great beat. Another merit to Goof Troop being a “hip for the time” series – the theme song has a heavily influenced hip-hop/rap feel, and back in the early 90’s it seems not even cartoons could escape the explosion of hip-hop/rap during this time. The song, its lyrics and clips are well placed; as usual, the singer is unknown.

Darkwing Duck (1991)

By this point and time, Disney could do no wrong with their cartoons – many of their shows became hits with viewers and fanbases grew rather quickly. They had created a perfect formula for creating great shows. Disney was on a hot streak of finely produced animation – and this success continued with a crime fighting duck who proclaimed himself to be “the terror that flaps in the night”.

Premiering on September 8, 1991, Darkwing Duck was Disney’s seven venture into television animation, and the third show made up of entirely original characters. It was a spin-off from the massively popular DuckTales series, and like the TaleSpin concept originally, Launchpad McQuack was slated to be the star. For whatever reason this was not meant to be, and he was demoted to the role of siderick for this series.

While the show establishes its own originality, it’s largely regarded as an affectionate satire on superhero mythos and lore. Darkwing’s costume, gas gun, and flashy introductions are all direct references to superheroes such as the Crimson Avenger and The Green Hornet. The fictional city of St. Canard, Darkwing’s rouges gallery, and the relative darkness of Darkwing compared to other Disney heroes reflect Batman and Gotham City. A few James Bond parodies exist as well, such as the villain Steelbeak, whose beak makes him similar to the Bond villain Jaws.

Darkwing Duck was another homerun hit for Disney, so much so that 91 episodes were produced, placing the series in second place to DuckTales for the most episodes in a Disney cartoon. The series aired its last episode on December 5, 1992. The two-part episode “Darkly Dawns The Duck” originally aired as an hour-length special on September 7, 1991, serving as the show’s pilot. After its initial airing the film was edited for time for the launching of the series and aired as the show’s first regular episode the following day. It features Tim Curry, who does an excellent job voicing the super-villain Taurus Bulba. Seasons one and two were aired simultaneously on different networks when the show premiered; season one in syndication as part of The Disney Afternoon block, and season two syndication aired Saturday mornings on ABC. This screwed up the chronological order of the episodes, and I wonder why Disney would choose to confuse fans by airing the series this way.

What’s even more puzzling is for the type of show Darkwing Duck was – why was there never an official conclusion to the series? Surely it was planned; Taurus Bulba’s abrupt exit in the episode “Steerminator” was, indeed, meant to ultimately lead into his return (and inevitable defeat) in a series finale that never came to be with the cancellation of the show following the last season, meaning this plot line would never be resolved. Why was there never a fourth season? Why did episode production stop at 91 episodes, an odd number for any series, and not continue to 100 full half-hours perhaps concluding the series within the last nine episodes? Surely Darkwing Duck deserved a full-length motion picture movie; it would have raised the elements of the show to a whole other plateau and given it much more of an edge. If not this, than a television special structured similar to the pilot so the series could end properly, all neat and tidy with all loose ends tied. All of this however never came to be; I’m not sure if fans every discovered why Darkwing Duck was left basically on a cliffhanger.

Darkwing Duck got the standard merchandising – Happy Meal toys, plush figures, books, stickers, coloring books, videogames, plus a special four issue comic book based on the pilot. Subsequent comic stories were featured in the magazine Disney Adventures from 1991-1995 as well as the Disney Afternoon comic book published by Marvel Comics. The series was also Emmy-nominated as well. The character of Darkwing Duck appeared occasionally in the series Bonkers, and Gosalyn appeared in the series Raw Toonage (although I never remember this happening). It should be noted that Darkwing Duck was the first Disney cartoon, that I can recall, broke the fourth wall where the characters of the show portrayed actors of the show they were in – this was showcased in the episode “A Star Is Scorned”.

The last time this masked crime fighting caped crusader and his crash landing sidekick were seen in Canada was on Family Channel around 1999/2000. Darkwing Duck is one of my favorite shows from Disney’s prime days of television animation. While I watched it a lot as a kid, I came to find I liked it even more with age. I ended up watching many episodes of the series online in late 2007 for the first time in years, and can say Darkwing Duck is a show that has aged well as I still found it plenty entertaining. It has many funny moments and has amusing stories. Darkwing Duck/Drake Mallard is an awesome character; you got to love his over-inflated ego coupled with his lack of common sense, all wrapped together by the lively voicing of Jim Cummings. Gosalyn is another favorite character of mine, always full of sprit and wanting to go on adventures. Christine Cavanaugh did an excellent job voicing her in the series and I don’t think she gets enough credit for that. It makes one wonder why she retired from voice acting and all but disappeared from the industry, as she was a talented actress. DVD’s of the show first started coming out in 2006, but one Youtube user has uploaded the entire series for viewing online. Of course the opening theme song (and the ending theme) is etched in the mind of anyone who watched this show; it has a very early 90’s pop sound to it, matched with good lyrics and clips. As usual, I have no idea who the singer is.