#gonzo is the wizard

[itsmedrawpower]

Cricket

[gifs-of-puppets]

Happy (Belated) 20th Anniversary to The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz!

[wizard-legs]

Some paint tingz I’ve done over the last.. 3 days for an upcoming market! Very excited to debut these guys and I’m thinking I’m definitely gonna have to make some prints of the muppet pieces!

[kidcore-nostalgia]

[almostfini]

Queer highlights of Muppets Wizard of Oz

-Gonzo as the "Tin Thing"

-Oz: Ladies, gentlemen, and unisex penguins...

-Sam the Eagle: who are you?

Fozzie: We're friends of Dorothy!

Gonzo: (enthusiastically) yeah!

[orbot5]

mini art dump^_^ (canot rembebrr if i posted the wizard of oz one…andyway or rn e Frye one….)

[kingbryancroidragon]

I had a dream last night and it was bizarre

So, we have Jax from "The Amazing Digital Circus" with the nose of Gonzo from "The Muppets" and the voice of the Wicked Witch of the West from "The Wizard of Oz", as in that specific depiction, whispering obscenities into Samuel L. Jackson's ear. That's it. That was the dream.

[lost-carcosa]

Miss Piggy is going to be surprised.

THE MUPPETS' WIZARD OF OZ (2005)

[cryptotheism]

what muppet has the best wizard’s temperament?

Gonzo, for obvious reasons.

[the-pirate-captain]

Muppets Wizard of Oz:

Dorothy: the token human

Well actually, in Kansas it's all people plus black and white

Once in Oz, maybe Toto should turn into a lil muppet doggy? I dunno

Glinda: Miss Piggy, OBVS

The Wicked Witch of the West: Miss Poogy (from the 2011 movie, or whatever the anti-Miss Piggy pig is called)

The Wizard: Dr Honeydew is the wizard, and Beaker is the big scary disembodied head that's supposed to trick people

The Scarecrow: Kermit

The Tin Woodsman: Gonzo

The Cowardly Lion: Fozzie

All the lil munchkins are tiny muppets :D

The flying monkeys are scary looking muppets. Maybe once Dorothy gets the hat that controls them she'll give it to Gonzo and they can have a dance number. Or something.

I think it would be fun!

[scots-dragon]

This is your daily reminder that Slayers was largely written whole cloth by the author and is not based directly on any tabletop campaign he was in. Meanwhile Record of Lodoss War, which is far more serious and dramatic, was in fact based on an actual D&D campaign the author was in.

You get out of these games what you’re willing to invest in them. Them turning into silly slapstick gonzo weirdness is entirely your own choice, and not how they need to go.

Your bard doesn’t need to try and seduce every dragon. Your wizard can know more spells than fireball. Your rogue can have literally any other personality type than traitorous edgelord.

[theatrebooknerd56]

I just saw a muppets Wizard of Oz post (love that movie) and concept: The muppets do Wicked

Elphaba: Miss Piggy

Glinda: ALSO Miss Piggy

Boq: Gonzo

Fiyero: Kermit

The Wizard: Rizzo and Pepe working together. Don't ask me how that works

Doctor Dillamond: The human

[caliburn-the-sword]

List the WORST descendants names from books and movies and state your reason.

anon i promise i don't bite let's be friends

anyway

li shang jr: i swear on my LIFE li shang would NOT be arrogant enough to name his son after HIMSELF. that's gaston type shit (...literally, considering the gaston twins)

clay clayton. i forgot who he's the son of but tell me why his entire first name is in his entire family name. lazy ahh naming

yzla... there is only ONE letter that separates it from being the same as her mum's name. otherwise it would literabbly be a beautiful name for a girl

HADIE AND HERKI. their names are dumb i'm sorry. you cannot just shortern their names and hope it works. lazy af

tiger peony. god why didn't descendants just let pochahontas (the movie) die. major fucking yikes. it's colonialism o'clock up in here!!

hermie bing. idgaf about her surname (even if it's a

mad maddy. name wise it's a blatant eah ripoff (ik she's not the daughter of the mad hatter but come on)

ginny gothel. god. i think all recognisably iconic harry potter names need to be retired for at least another 30 years. i don't see a scary isle kid, i see a wizard nerd with a wand and broomstick

lefeu deux, firstly because it's also named after his father and secondly because it's french (/j)

othello. ik it's a bird but it's absolutely WILD to continue the shakespeare theme down the bird's family line, but using the narrative VICTIM of the namesake of the first bird for the second bird. that's genuinely wild. who was cooking with that?? clearly the second bird should've been macbeth. or if we're gonna go with the theme of "asshole that hates on racial minority" then antionio would also work. also. iago is a coincidence but TWO characters named after shakespearean characters?? the implication that shakespeare still existed in the descendants world?? the poor VK's. not only do they come to auradon and are forced to take remedial Goodness Classes but they're forced to learn SHAKESPEARE in the most textbook and boring way i imagine

twee. i don't think anything needs to be said it's a very obviously terrible name

gonzo. i'm sorry your parents didn't love you enough to give you a name that didn't sound like a cartoon sound effect of when a hot woman walks by

[theresattrpgforthat]

What's a game/some games you wish you could talk about more?

THEME: Mint’s Favourite Games. (Part 1/2)

Dear friend, I do not know if you know how much pain this causes me because…there are so many games! Games I’ve run, games I haven’t run, games I’ve purchased, games I want to buy… narrowing it down is so so hard. It’s like asking to choose which child is your favourite. So first things first I’m going to drop a link to the Games that Intrigue Me collection that I’ve been fostering on Itch, because that’s where you’re going to see games that I really really want to talk about and play in the future. (There are currently 148 games in there, and that’s just what’s available on Itch!!!) With that out of the way, let’s talk about some of my highlights.

There are 12 games in total that I managed to narrow it down to, so let's take a look at the first 6!

Changeling: the Lost 1e, by White Wolf / Onyx Path (Played)

The most trad game on this list, Changeling: The Lost was the reason I stepped into roleplaying games. It was advertised as a fantastical allegory for healing from trauma, which is exactly the kind of hard-hitting, emotional depth that got me interested when it came to roleplaying games. One of my favourite ways to sell it is to tell you this:

Imagine your favourite piece of media and pick a particular character from that media. Now imagine that the entire story that this character experienced was a lie: a story they were put in, in order to fulfill the whims and wiles of an inhuman, eldritch Fae. Now imagine them clawing their way back into the real world only to find out that nobody missed them, that their parents and girlfriend never realized that they left because the thing that took them left behind a shell of a copy. What’s more, they still feel the pull of the magical world - they can’t forget it, even if they want to. How do you heal from a magic that you can never leave behind?

Changeling: The Lost has a lot of drawbacks. It’s clunky. It requires an unhealthy amount of d10s. It’s got two editions, and most folks prefer the one edition over the other. It requires a lot of prep. The “beautiful madness” can definitely lead into some negative stereotypes about mental health (which is why I recommend re-working the Clarity mechanic into a mechanic about how trauma affects your emotions). White Wolf cannot write a fucking index. But the combination of personal horror with the glitter around the edges has got me in a choke-hold and I don’t know how to let it go.

Bones Deep, by Technical Grimoire. (Played)

I cannot emphasize how well-formatted Bones Deep is. The bookmarking on the PDF for this game is the best I’ve ever seen, and I’m an avid player of Numenera. This is a Troika game about freshly-hatched skeletons travelling the ocean floor, tussling with a cephalopod invasion, cursed wizards, a crab cabal, and the Skeleton War. Each location in this book can naturally lead to others, and there’s roll tables that allow for you to generate a number of story prompts before you run a session. It’s heavily improv friendly, and allows combat but so much more than that.

You need the Troika handbook to run this game, but honestly, Troika is such a great, gonzo system that I don’t even consider that a drawback, especially because the Skeleton characters from Bones Deep are 100% compatible with the larger game as a whole. I’m not going to say that this is a combat-free game, because it certainly isn’t, but I was surprised at how many problems the players could solve without having to resort to combat

External Containment Bureau, by Mythic Gazetteer. (Played)

This game introduced me to the concept of an open-ended mystery that the players kind of put together as they play. The idea of leaving a few possibilities for a whodunit is not exactly new, and ECB is definitely not the first game to embrace a generative style of play, but it implements it very very well. This is an adaptation of Forged-in-the-Dark that speeds up character creation and makes one-shot play more viable than some of the traditional hacks of Blades. The setting also fucking slaps. Its X-Files meets SCP meets the Office. It has the ability to alter how serious or goofy you want the tone to be. It has mechanics for supernatural powers and drawn-out conspiracies.

It also has a cult-flavoured hack called Congregation, which is just as good and you should also check out.

Subway Runners, by Gem Room Games. (Played)

A hella-fast game with a character generator that lets you pick up and play in minutes, Subway Runners is extremely online friendly, extremely reasonably priced, and extremely funny. You’re subway maintenance crews dealing with magical problems in the underground of a fantastical metropolis. It’s a gig economy. It’s got stations built out of buried giants. It’s got traumas like “nervous”, “romantic” and “brave to a fault”. It’s one-shot Forged-In-The-Dark.

Your online-generated character sheet reads like a Contractor File, complete with side hustles, custom inventories, your Lunch Order and your Demerits. Fix train lines, find missing passengers, and send eldritch monstrosities back into the inter dimensional portals from whence they came. All so you can pay rent. This game is off-the-wall and it’s only three fucking dollars. Please, I’m begging you to check out this game.

Slugblaster, by Mikey Hamm. (Bought, not yet played).

I was so excited for this game that I managed to get on the proofreading team! And gosh I am stoked about that. This is another Forged-in-the-Dark game (I think I’m sensing a theme here), this time about teenagers hoverboarding through the multiverse. This game is so kooky and has such a unique take on FitD, with mechanics that really emulate the idea of cobbling together gear and tech to make your kit personalized. It’s a game wholly about teenage self-expression and self-discovery, in a world that's doing its best to limit your independence.

The layout for this game is also wonderfully fun and evocative. It’s brightly-coloured, with contributions from around the world, and suggestions for playing in towns other than Hillview, Canada (although as a Canadian I am also deeply fond of the built-in setting). I wrote an add-on for this game, called Charlock, and you can get it, as well as a whole bundle of goodies in the Slugblasting for Teen Mental Health Bundle here, until the end of July!!!!

i’m sorry did you say street magic, by Caro Ascersion. (Played)

This is a city-building game that I adore playing as a set-up to a one-shot or a campaign. I’ve used it to create a superhero city, as well as a Ghibli-inspired city, and there are resources for making gothic cities, cyberpunk cities, and so so much more. There’s a supplement that I adore called there are names here more powerful than our own, which is pay-what-you-want but makes play more accessible for folks who have trouble coming up with ideas on the spot.

The art for these games is by Shannon Kao, and it’s whimsically mundane. It perfectly communicates the vibe of play. The city generation helps you create neighbourhoods, as well as landmarks and characters located in those neighbourhoods, but it doesn’t stop there. It also helps you generate story hooks that you could pick up for an upcoming game. Finally, the mutual element of creation gives players ownership and investment in the city they create, so when it comes to character creation, you should find that the players will easily be able to anchor themselves in the world.

If you want to hear an example of this game, I recommend @partyofonepod ’s episode, which was recorded with the creator of the game.

You can find Part 2 of this post here!

[popculturebuffet]

Muppet Madness Christmas Double Feature: A Letter to Santa and John Denver X Muppets: A Christmas Together: Tidings of Mediocrity and Boredom (PatreonXComission For Emma Fici)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Muppet Madness, my look at all things muppety on this blog. It's been a while, as I took most of 2024 off muppet wise with me and emma, my friend who helps make this possible, mostly doing other stuff.

Still it wouldn't be christmas without the muppets and having ran through the holy trinity of Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppet Family Christmas and Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas, i'ts time to branch out a bit. SO when having movie night me and emma watched two slices of christmas cake: the 2008 special A Muppet Christmas: Letters to Santa and 1979's John Denver And the Muppets: A Christmas Together. And while these aren't the best muppet projects , and we'll get to why under the cut, i'm just happy to be back with these guys, something that's not stopping as next year we're hitting up muppetvision 3d, survival street's sequel the radical left and i'm hoping the movies I haven't gotten to yet. I at least want to get around to the Muppet Movie to make up for missing it's anniversary.

So with renewed vigor, holiday cheer and some good dollops of mediocrity, join me under the cut to look at some tv specials to see if they have that muppet magic

A Muppet's Christmas: Letters to Santa: A Rope of Sand

I came into letters to santa excited: Unlike the other muppet christmas specail/movie I haven't gotten to, this one had a good rep and seemed like it'd be fun. The muppets have a fantastic holiday track record as does Paul Williams, who did the soundtrack and co wrote this film. Paul Williams is a muppet legend, a musical maestro who wrote the amazing soundtracks to The Muppet Movie, A Muppet Christmas Carol and the cult classic Phantom of the Paradise which I not only covered this halloween but I consider an honorary muppet film. It dosen't really have any muppets like fellow honorary muppet film LIttle Shop of Horrors but it does have a kickass paul williams soundtrack and some weird shit, so i'm going to count it anyway.

Instead.. this one's a disapointment. It's not horrible. It's not Muppets Wizard of Oz which has lurked at the bottom of the rankings since I started doing these, but it's nothing really special. The 2000's were a time , not unlike now, where the muppets were spinning in the wind, with Disney occasionally breaking them out but having no clear direction.

And this spilled onto Muppet Family Christmas. While it was only a few years before the Muppets briefly revitalized things, it feels an ocean away, having a script cobbled out of so many stock plots it might as well have a water mark on it.

It's Christmas Time and Gonzo is mailing a letter to santa which gets derision from Pepe who dosen't believe. After a musical number featuring Jesse L Martin, who does a wonderful job and is enhusastic and who I love from his current show the Irrantional, Gonzo ends up thrown out of the post office and with three letters, one of which is from a little girl who lives in their building whose mom is 30 Rock's Jane Krakowski, and must go on a quest but oh no almost everyone else gives up and oh no nathan lane's in the way but they get through it with pluck and wonder and

Yeah there is.. nothing to this plot. You can have a thin plot and have it work with the muppets, easily. The Muppet Movie's plot is "Kermit goes on a wacky road trip to become a star and picks up the familiar troupe along the way while a corrupt frog leg salesman wants him to be his shill", The Muppets is your standard getting the band back together to save something under threat from a greedy developer, the great muppet caper is a nonsense heist plot bouyed by great songs, snappy jokes and Charles Grodin. You don't need a super deep or impactful plot: that can work easily, see A Muppet Christmas Carol, the muppets are versitle but as long as you have jokes and heart, the muppets will prevail.

This specail has neither. The jokes just aren't there, and the bulk rely on a buffet of celebrity cameos, which isn't unusual for the muppets but feel more shoehorned in than usual. Jesse L Martin's part as a postman who sings a number about doing the mail stuff is one of the few that feels warranted. We've got actors from the sopranos for a one dimensional mob joke, jane krakowski in a role that just dosen't fit her more acidic and hammy chops, Madison Pettis of Corey in the House Fame as a little girl, Uma Thurman constantly fanning herself because someone has a thing for that on the writing staff and Nathan Lane as your stock "Character who hate santa because santa didn't give him a toy"> I do like that his character does realize he was a bully and kermit turns him around, convicing him he can be better, but there's not much here and all these actors feel wasted. These four all have good comedic timing, but arne't given anything to do .

There are SOME jokes sprinkled in that work: some pidgeons our heroes try to get the fly the letters and everything Bobo does because Bobo is the best. But even Bobo being here feels like a repeat of Muppets From Space where he was the bumbling sidekick to the villian. There's nothing here that feels like it needed to happen. The music should be great, but while Williams tries a little, it's pretty forgertable. At the very least this means we get Williams himself as an elf and he is fantastic, entertaining and a shot of energy into the film, but it's disapointing to have a paul williams soundtrack I don't remotely remember after watching. That.. shoudln't be possible but here we are.

There's also an annoying subplot where Piggy is pissy about the vacation, wants to get to it immediately and is mad at Kermit for .. trying to help a child's letter get to santa. It's the kind of piggy I hate where she's just mad at anything Kermit does and takes it as a sign of his lack of commitment.. which is a serious problem with them as things go on, but in this case he wasn't waffling or not intrested, he simply was trying to do the right thing.

This film just exists. I didn't think I"d be this disappointed in it but the more I write about it the less I have to say. And it's not because it's funny it's because it's just bland. It's like someone put muppets into an ai generator. The muppets performers try, paul williams try, but the framework is so bland and cobbled together it just dose'nt work. Speaking of not working

John Denver X Muppets: A Christmas With You: Generations

Part of why I probably wasn't as hard on Letters From Santa before writing is that what came after was so much worse. John Denver X Muppets, and yes I do know it's and muppets but it's my blog and my joke, is boring. It's is the biggest blank void of a specail i've ever watched. It's a moment or two of what the fuck like john denver being a toy solider or dressing up weird, a really fucking nice hat that John Denver wears in the opening, and just.. nothing.

I HATED this thing when we watched all 60 boring minutes , even more when a section I missed thanks to a guest was rewatched later. The original intro to this was a lot angrier until I figured out why it's like this.

You see the same year John Denver guest starred on the muppet show. And while John Denver is not an artist I know that well only knowing him from a fictional character's rivalry with him when they were neighbors in Denver

It hasn't stopped me from enjoying a muppet show episode before: I didn't know Alice Cooper well, his episode is one of my faviorites. Same with Harry Belafonte and his episode IS my faviorite. The Muppet Show does a good job showing a star off and letting them run wild. And this episode was pretty good. I forgo tto finish it but no episode with a bunch of historic soldiers singing why can't we be friends (And sadly some native american sterotypes), before getting gunned down by statlder and woldorf can be calssifiedas bad

The problem is a christmas with you.. isn't a muppet production. It has them in it, in their vintage design glory and a subplot about miss piggy wanting a big roll.. but it's not their special. It's John Denvers. And thus instead of having chaotic muppet energy it has john denver energy. And John Denver is bland. He's the dry toast of Country Singers. He has made some good songs, but none are my style adn the christmas songs he sings here feel like several eternities. The bulk of the special is just john denver sings a boring ballad while I try not to

See even typing about it is a struggle. He only uses the muppets in a few segments and even those, while not as sleep enducing, still aren't rousing. Paul Wiliams didn't do his best for letters to santa but he's still paul williams. John Denver has a good song and probably more for people who like this but for me it's the worst parts of 70's music, those long dreary tuneless ballads, distlled into one bland special.

Ranking: As you can imagine neither of these really scored that high but since it's been a year since I got to break out the ranking list, i'm still happy to have it back. I may rework this into a tier list in the future, we'll see. but for now they scrape the bottom

Though just showing how high the quality is only John Denver and the Muppets and Muppets Wizard of Oz are geninely BAD. The rest have SOME merit tucked in there and even the John Denver special still isn't close. We really hit rock bottom early and hopefully we'll never dig deeper.

Next Time: A look at a soon to be lost disney attraction! We're back babY!

[orphyd]

RIP squashed Gonzo, hello Wizard Snoopy