#1993 Comic Relief

[my-mistake-lets-do-this-again]

source (x)

This whole Comic Relief video is amazing but the Jeeves and Wooster section is the best by far. Hugh Laurie’s singing + Stephen Fry’s everything killed it. With the bonus content from the whole video just being so funny.

Watch it and join me in knowing about this absolute gem.

[fragilecapric0rnn]

FRIENDS AU Part 2: The One Where Eddie Copes

[part one]

[cross-posted to ao3] || word count: 3.3k

Eddie doesn’t know how long it takes for his soul to return to his body. 

It left as soon as his eyes and brain fully registered that he was suddenly in the presence of his high school crush. Right here, in the flesh, sitting in the middle of his friends in The Jittery. He can’t help but consider the fact that he may have been the one to summon him with his pathetic cry for his ex-girlfriend just moments before the incident. 

The casual, ‘You remember Eddie? From high school?’ comment from Robin sucker-punched Eddie right in the chest. The eye contact and shy smile that followed nearly sent Eddie into some sort of stress-induced cardiac arrest. 

He hardly registers the barely coherent story that Steve is trying to tell. Eddie watches him bring a glass of water to his mouth with shaky hands and tries not to stare at his lips. 

“I’m confused.” Jonathan says as Eddie starts to regain consciousness.  

Memories of his repressed gay awakening circa-1985 come flooding back with a vengeance. Sitting in the bleachers during gym class, watching this same guy flick off his t-shirt, dripping in sweat, shit-talking his opponents, shoving them around a little too rough for a gym class game of basketball. 

He adjusts how he’s sitting in the chair, right now, in 1993. Beating away the thoughts from the Ghost of Horny Moments Past, pushing away the potential for any unexplainable chubs as he tries to sit and listen to the man himself ramble about God-knows-what, soaking wet like a pathetic little kitten in the coffee shop. 

He’s going to throw up. 

Or pass out. 

Possibly both.

Thankfully, everyone’s attention is on the runaway bride, too distracted to notice that he’s in crisis. 

“It makes perfect sense to me.” Argyle shrugs, handing Steve a giant ceramic cup. 

“Just run it by us one more time.” 

Steve takes a comically large sip from his mug, holds the coffee in his cheeks, making them puff out and Eddie is convinced that this is some sort of punishment for all of his mistakes. 

“You know, they always told me that cold feet are normal. That’s what they all say about  getting married, that you get cold feet. Well, I realized when I woke up this morning, after having a very vivid and intense dream about Harrison Ford, that maybe my feet were never really that warm to begin with, ya know?” 

Everyone is nodding, as if they do know. Nancy has her eyebrows knitted together, Robin looks a bit too amused, Jonathan looks confused, and Argyle is casually dipping his tea bag into his mug, like this is a normal thing unfolding in front of them.

“Look, I was in a frat in college. I am very comfortable with my sexuality or whatever and I didn’t let the dream sway any decision making at that moment.”

Eddie resists the urge to ask him what exactly this sexuality is. 

“So it wasn’t Harrison…” Nancy presses, her hand motioning as if to say, 'Please continue this batshit story.'

“It wasn’t him,” He takes a sip from his mug, the rest of the group inches closer. “It happened about 10 minutes later, when Lola was knocking on my door, standing there in tears.”

“Fuck,” Robin drags out the word, Jonathan lets out a low whistle.

“Turns out, she also had lukewarm feet throughout most of our relationship. She wanted to call it off. And that’s when I knew we had to. Because any normal fiance would’ve freaked the fuck out, right? Would’ve started begging or pleading or yelling or something! But I had nothing. Nothing but relief.” 

The collective air in the room deflates. 

“So, we devised a plan. We’d both get ready, business as usual. And I’d be the one to sneak out of the bathroom window in the groom’s suite. Before we realized it was on the second story of the hotel.” 

He shrugs, as Eddie studies his attire a little closer, seeing he does have twigs and a smattering of leaves on his now-discarded jacket.

“Steve, I know you’re vulnerable and whatever,” Robin says, pausing when Nancy smacks her arm. “But, why here? Why us?” Motioning between her and Nancy.

He chuckles, eyes now looking down into his cup. Eddie can't help but stare at this very odd man sitting in front of him.

“I don’t know. I guess it was mostly because I knew you lived in the city. But there’s another part of me that knew you’d understand. You were one of the only people I’ve ever met that tried understanding me for me. Not what you wanted me to be.” 

And that's, wow. Why on Earth would he say something like that? Now Eddie has to cope with the fact that not only is this dude still hot, he sounds sweet as hell. 

“C’mon, let’s get you up to the apartment.” 

He can’t cope. 

- 

“Mom, you’re gonna need to stop crying or hand the phone back to dad.” Steve pleads. He's been on the phone for about an hour at this point, everyone else scattered around Nancy's apartment, listening.

Eddie, most of the shock worn off by now, is sitting at Nancy’s kitchen table, eating a pie straight from the tin and unable to tear his eyes away from the train wreck that is Steve Harrington, still in his damp clothes, but stripped down to an undershirt and the tux pants and no shoes or socks.

Watches him keep tugging hard at his hair every time a muffled yell comes out of the phone, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. 

No wonder this guy ran away. 

Robin sits backwards on the chair next to Eddie’s as Steve stumbles out of the window onto the terrace, where the rain has somewhat let up.  

“Do you think he’s gay?” He asks as soon as Steve is fully outside. 

“Definitely not straight." Robin plucks the fork from Eddie's hand.

Jonathan shrugs, sighing as he finally sets the change of clothes down on the table and takes a seat.. He has been holding a change of clothes from his apartment in his hands for at least a half hour, waiting for Steve to get off the phone with his parents. 

"I mean, who talks about Harrison Ford in the same breaths as explaining why you ran away from your wedding?” He says, stealing the fork from Robin. 

“I never think about Harrison Ford unless I’m watching him on tv. And even then I barely think about him.” 

“Does that answer your question?” 

Before Eddie can say, not really, his thoughts are interrupted by a commotion coming from the other side of the room where the bedroom doors are closed.

Nancy comes out of the spare room, curly hair frizzier than it had been on the way up the stairs from the coffee shop, rubbing her temples and pulling on her face as she joins the group in the living room. 

“Are they still arguing?” She asks, craning her neck to get a better look at him out on the terrace. He’s still gesturing wildly, doing a lot more yelling. 

“I think so?” Robin turns her head like a confused dog, watching him gesture wildly with his free hand. 

“One minute he’s telling his dad that he doesn’t want to live like him and then it sounds like his mom is crying, I think he talked to his old nanny at one point?” 

“His parents sound like a mess.” Eddie says, earning three different versions of a 'no-duh' look from his friends.

“Have you seen the apple? What kinda tree do you think it fell from?” Jonathan says, passing the fork back to Eddie, which is then snatched away by Nancy. She takes the pie tin from them, putting it back in the fridge. 

They can hear the window opening and Steve falling back inside, silent cursing to himself. 

“No dad, you listen!” All their heads snap in the direction of Steve. Once again, soaking wet. His face is red, his already big hair standing up in every direction, and an insane look on his eyes.

Are his pupils dilated?

“Fine! I don’t care, I don’t care anymore! Cut me off! I don’t care! You know what,” Steve struggles to get his wallet out of his pocket, pauses and just throws the wallet across the room. Muffled yelling comes from the phone. “I'm snapping my credit cards right fucking now!" 

"I’ll stay here, with Nancy and Robin and you can take that inheritance and shove it up your ass!” Steve hangs up the phone and throws it onto the loveseat next to him. 

No one moves. No one speaks. The air is still, but only for a moment.

“I think this is where the sitcom audience would clap.” Eddie forgot Argyle has been laying down on the couch this entire time. Steve’s red face suddenly looks sickly pale. 

"I think I'm gonna be sick."

Jonathan and Nancy hop up from their spots, Robin hands him a brown paper bag, and they guide him to the couch. Eddie watches this all unfold, lingering in the background. Not one for comfort, especially being the king of mommy and daddy issues, without the complicated mess of being a trust fund baby, he has nothing helpful to add. 

“It’s gonna be okay, just try taking deep breaths.” 

Steve nods, the paper bag inflating and deflating slower, but still rather fast. 

“Would it help if I sang a song?” 

The bag inflates and deflates even slower, everyone just sort of stares at Argyle. 

“Don’t worry, about a thing, because every little thing, is gonna be alright.” Steve slowly brings the paper bag down, rests his hand on Argyle’s forearm.  

“I think I’m okay now, thank you.” He visibly winces at the lackluster Bob Marley

“Don’t mention it, mon.” 

For some godforsaken reason, Steve looks right at Eddie as they make the same face, an eyebrow hiked up to their hairlines, the physical embodiment of a scoff without actually scoffing. All while making eye contact with each other. 

Eddie looks away quickly, jumping out of the chair so fast that it scrapes against the floor, startling everyone in the room. 

“What am I gonna do?” He sounds panicked. 

“We’re gonna help you figure it out,” Jonathan says, sat on the coffee table across from him. 

“You can stay here with me, Jonathan and Robin live across the hall, it’ll be fun.” Nancy is patting his arm. 

“But what about money? I have none of that!” 

“There are these things called jobs,” Eddie says, Nancy snaps her head around and damn-near snarls at him. Steve’s brown paper bag is back to inflating and deflating. 

The phone rings, saving Eddie from immediate doom via-Nancy Wheeler. 

Nancy looks at the time and is now the one to get up from her seat next to Steve like something bit her on the ass.

“Shit! Shit shit shit!”

“What's with all the shit, Wheeler?” Eddie asks, Nancy flipping him off as the phone continues to ring in her hand.

“I forgot to call Frank and cancel.”

“Who’s Frank?” 

“My date,” she says, immediately sending Eddie a scrunched up face and mouthing sorry.  

“Wait wait wait, Frank? As in, Frank the Creepy Paper Salesman?” Robin hops over the backside of the couch, falling into Nancy. The phone stops ringing. Nancy takes a deep breath, closing her eyes and looking up at the ceiling.

Creepy was a generous assessment of the piece of work that is Frank. Asking Nancy on dates ever since she started working at The Times, stopping by the office ad nauseam, so much so, he has become a regular fixture in the lore surrounding Nancy's office.

“Yes, that Frank.” 

“Is the dating well running that dry Nance? So dry you finally said yes to Frank the creepy paper salesman?” 

“Listen, he caught me in a momentary lapse of judgment.”

“Were you conscious during this lapse?” 

"Fully, I just. It's been a while since I'd been on a date and my mom would not stop pestering me about it on the phone literal minutes, seconds even, before Frank showed up to talk to my boss. So, when he did his usual creep routine of asking me out, I said yes."

“Was he as surprised as we are?” Eddie asks, Nancy nods, wincing. 

"And are you regretting the yes?"

"Fully!" 

The phone is ringing again. 

“Hello,” she answers, sounding like she has a congested nose. “Hi Frank, yeah, I’m not feeling that well. Yeah, maybe we can postpone. I’ll call you, yeah.” 

“I’m sorry Nancy, I know this was kinda my fault.” Steve’s voice continues to be muffled by the bag. 

“I can’t believe you thought I’d be upset about you going out with Frank the Creep.” Eddie sits back down in the kitchen chair. Is he really that fragile? Can his friends really not share their downfalls with him like they used to? 

“I don’t know! You freaked when Robin went on a date with Tam-” 

“Aht! Aht!” Robin waves her hands in the air, almost elbowing Steve. “We are not talking about my dating life. I am striking this down immediately!” 

“Point still stands, then. You’re still very upset about Michelle.” And the sound of her name feels like a cartoon anvil dropping inside of his stomach, dropping and dropping. 

“We are not gonna talk about Michelle right now.” He deadpans. 

“Who’s Michelle?” Steve asks, paper bag back in front of his face, inflating and deflating as he speaks.  All of the air has been kicked out of Eddie’s lungs. 

“Eddie’s ex,” Argyle whispers loudly, with no effort made to keep Eddie from hearing him. 

“We are not talking about Michelle right now!” Eddie yells. Everyone goes quiet. 

“Right now we are going to focus on getting Steve to stop breathing into a paper fucking bag!” 

To which they all look over at Steve, who is staring at everyone with wide eyes and the bag no longer dramatically inflating and deflating, just held to his mouth as he stares around the room. 

“I’m actually starting to feel a little better.” He says, into the bag. Inflating and deflating. 

-

-

-

Across the hall, Eddie has his feet kicked up on Jonathan and Robin’s couch, hands linked and resting on his stomach. His head in Robin’s lap and his feet on Jonthan’s lap, staring up at the ceiling where he can see a spaghetti stain splattered across the asbestos pattern. 

Jeopardy is playing in the background but none of them are paying attention. Argyle is sat on the floor, head close to Eddie’s as they all pass around a joint. 

“So, you let her take the TV, the bedroom set, and the living room set. What do you even have left at your place?” 

“Pots and pans?” 

“Dude,” Argyle blows a ring of smoke in the air. “That is so not cool.” He passes Eddie the joint.

“I felt bad. It’s my fault we’re in this situation.” 

“There are no faults, and yet you’re still punishing yourself.” Jonathan says, eyes glued to the TV, a familiar spacey look on his face. 

Argyle checks his watch and gets up from the floor, patting around his pockets. 

“Looks like it’s time for me to head out, Aunt Miriam is making midnight spaghetti and I wanna get there before her boyfriend eats all the garlic bread.” 

“Midnight spaghetti?” and “Your great aunt has a boyfriend?” are asked by Eddie and Robin respectively at the same time. 

“See ya man,” Jonathan yells as the door shuts behind him. 

Robin knocks on Eddie’s head lightly before pushing him off of her, stretching and yawning as she stands. 

“I’m gonna go raid Nance’s for some more beers,” He swings he feet off of Jonathan’s lap and stretches. 

“I’ll get your pillow and blankey situated,” Robin says. Eddie half turns to send her a salute before shutting the door, opening the one across the hall almost in one fell swoop. 

He doesn’t expect to see Steve still up, sitting at the same kitchen chair he spent most of the afternoon and evening in. Most of the color returned to face, a glass of wine and an open bottle on the table. 

“Hey,” He says, curious and careful

“Hi.” Steve smiles warmly at him, gesturing the bottle at him, Eddie takes it as an invitation. 

“You alright?” He grabs a wine glass from Nancy’s hanging glass rack. 

“Yeah, couldn’t sleep.” 

“Why? A lot on your mind?” Eddie takes the seat across form him. 

“You’re funny,” Steve fills Eddie’s glass. “I remember you being kinda funny in high school.” To that, Eddie fakes a dagger to the heart, startling Steve a bit, who is looking at Eddie with the same type of amusement that everyone looked at him with a few hours ago. 

“If seventeen-year-old-me heard you say that you remembered me at all from high school, there’d be an Eddie shaped hole in that door.” Eddie takes a swig from his wine, thanking whoever is in charge of the universe that it's red wine, giving him an explanation for the blush already blooming on his face. Well, a better explanation than a cute guy laughing at his silly jokes. 

“Of course I remember you, how could I forget all those lunchtime sermons about how cool and different you were and how lame and boring the rest of us were.” Steve says, not hiding how much it he seems to enjoy that the little walk down memory lane has started to make Eddie visibly cringe.

“Don’t remind me of that,” Eddie groans into his glass. 

“You seem a lot softer now.” 

Eddie drags his eyes up from where they were studying the knick in the the wood on the table, meeting Steve’s gaze. 

“You caught me at a soft time in my life, Harrington.”

“Right,” Steve leans back in his chair, brings his own glass to his lips, pausing to take a sip. “Your ex.” 

“Yep, my ex.” 

“Did she just, totally break your heart?” He asks, throwing Eddie off guard a bit. He didn't expect Steve to be so forward with his nosiness. Kinda respects it. 

“No, it was more like. I broke my own heart.” 

“What does that even mean?” 

He looks at Steve. Really looks at him, and can almost see the kindness actually spilling out of those pretty brown eyes, how he came to Robin and Nancy specifically to help him out, knowing that they would. 

“It means, I realized that she’s not really my type after all. After eight years together, I finally realized that I am g-” he clears his throat. 

“That I’m gay. No matter how much I love her, no amount is going to change the fact that I wasted both of our time.” 

Eddie can’t bear to look up at Steve, but feels his eyes on him. 

The glug glug sound of wine pouring out of the bottle breaks the silence, Eddie finally looks up. 

“You need it more than I do,” Steve says, taking a swig from the bottle, tipping it over the table to show that it’s now empty. 

This makes Eddie laugh. A full belly laugh that seems to be contagious, as Steve’s now laughing, a snort escaping his nose and mouth, making the two laugh even harder. 

“You guys, seriously?” Nancy comes out of her room, robe on and rollers in her hair. “Some of us have to work in the morning!” 

“Sorry Nance, we’ll keep it down.” 

“Sorry.” 

She looks at them, her face softens with look of mild bewilderment. Stands there for a few seconds longer than she otherwise would’ve, before wordlessly going back into her bedroom. 

“That reminds me, I need to get one of those.” Steve says as her door clicks shut. 

“One of what?” 

“A job, or something.” 

“I can put a good word in for you at a few places.” He says, taking a big gulp from the very full wine glass. 

“Thanks, Eddie.” 

He can’t help but think maybe, just maybe, he will be able to cope with Steve being around. 

[bulgariansumo]

My brain wants to ramble about Mario movies, so I will do that. There will be bias, and there will be spoilers, but I think I'm going to at least put the section about the 2023 movie under a read more. Let's begin.

Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach! (1986)

My love, my light, my heart.

Making a movie based on the Mario origin story(?) of "guys stumble into fantasy world, save princess from monster" is difficult if you don't add something to it, but adding things comes with the risk of deviating from the source material’s vibe, since it’s so simple. It’s the same problem with movies based on Dr. Seuss books.

Something a lot of people don't realize when watching this one is that Super Mario Bros. only came out a year prior. The people tasked with making this movie had very little to work with. Luigi didn't even have a consistent color scheme (though prior to this, he was always depicted with green somewhere.)

This movie’s solution to these problems? Keep it simple. Mario and Luigi spend the movie collecting "the three legendary powerups" with a dog and then go fight Koopa. They have misadventures on the way, and Mario eats Mario-branded ramen. It's fun, it's silly, it's goofy!

This is all accompanied with a charming art style that really takes advantage of the ability to push character expressions. For the cast, we have:

Mario - He’s not the smartest, the strongest, or most fearless, but he’s determined, and sometimes that’s all you need. This movie depicts him as a lovestruck dreamer, so a good chunk of his lines involve him calling out to “Piichi-hime~” Also, he’s a gamer. His character is nothing unique, but it sets the tone of this movie, something that I feel like Mario’s character does in all three.

Luigi - Pickaxe in hand, his number one priority is getting his coins. He and Mario share about three brain cells total, but he lacks the idealism of his brother, trying to keep him grounded in the things that really matter: money, food, and their business as…grocers? He’s there for his brother when it counts, though. Most of the cast has their fair share of goofy moments, but he is the designated comic relief, and Yuu Mizushima’s performance serves that well. He sounds unhinged half the time, it’s great! Fun fact: This is the first time Luigi is depicted as thinner and taller than Mario.

Peach - She spends most of the time wishing that Mario would save her, as one might expect, but even this early on, she has a little bit of agency. Her first introduction is her fighting off the enemies after her, and she manages to pull a clever trick on Koopa midway through, though it doesn’t help her much.

Koopa - Very doting on Peach and willing to accommodate her whatever way he can, except for letting her go. His portrayal by singer Akiko Wada combined with the rounded artstyle makes him more adorable than menacing.

Kibidango - The dog that tags along with Mario and Luigi. He tries to be their voice of reason, but he can’t talk, and they don’t listen. He’s mostly there to help the plot along and provide a twist at the end. 

For the most part, this movie sticks to using material from the game. There’s some deviations, like the dog and a wizard, but they don’t feel too out of place and, if anything, lend to the movie’s fairy tale-like quality.

Mario games generally try to maintain a whimsical, timeless vibe, and this movie captures that best. It’s not perfect, but it's a fun little romp that I highly recommend watching at least once, only an hour long. Please watch it!

Next are my thoughts on Super Mario Bros. (1993).

I also finished my thoughts on Super Mario Bros. (2023) if you're interested.

[lyledebeast]

Now that I've seen some other versions, I really think the 1993 Three Musketeers would've benefitted from Chris O'Donnell's D'Artagnan following Michael Wincott's Rochefort around trying to duel him while Rochefort is like, "Begone, twink. I'm busy."

It's weird that the entirety of the relationship between these characters spans the length of one swordfight. The change from Rochefort insulting D'Artagnan's horse to murdering his father is, uh . . . quite a jump!

The most troubling change, though, is that in the 1973 version it is D'Artagnan who calls Rochefort "Cyclops," and in the 1993 version it's Aramis. D'Artagnan uses it to provoke Rochefort into the duel he's been trying to instigate with him since their first meeting. Earlier in the film, before he knows Rochefort's name, he addresses him on the street as "the one without the eye," and Rochefort doesn't so much as glance his way. He needed to up the ante! He's also the youngest and most immature of the main characters, and his choice of insult reflects that. When Aramis, consistently presented as the most virtuous of the musketeers, addresses Rochefort with an ableist slur, it's because the writers thought it was funny in itself.

There's a meanspiritedness that pervades the 93 version. One of the main sources of comic relief is Girard, an effete Gascon gentleman who pursues D'Artagnan from the beginning of the film to its end, calling his name in a high-pitched voice. In the 73 version, everyone is a source of comic relief, not only young D'Artagnan but all three of the musketeers. Even Rochefort has his moments of levity. It is delightful in its silliness.

[the-last-dillpickle]

DS9 trivia from IMDB - Part 6

- Armin Shimerman had introduced the Ferengi into Star Trek lore in the episode Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Last Outpost(1987), when the Ferengi were still intended to be an antagonistic race. However, over time, the Ferengi started to serve more and more as comic relief characters. Shimerman later said that he regretted his mean-spirited, one-dimensional performance in The Next Generation, and took it upon himself to flesh out the Ferengi and their culture as much as possible throughout Deep Space Nine's run.

- When designing the space station, illustrator Michael Okuda came up with a sprawling, asymmetrical design inspired by an oil rig. He was quite proud of it, but producer Rick Berman didn't like it. He told Okuda that ultimately the design needed to be something simple that an eight year old could draw, and still be recognized. With this idea in mind, Okuda conceived the final design.

- Dr. Julian Bashir's last name was originally Amoros, and he was intended to be of Spanish or Hispanic descent. The name was not changed until the series pilot, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Emissary (1993), went into pre-production. Alexander Siddig said that he was very happy that the writers were bold enough not to write a backstory for Bashir, so that he wasn't shoehorned into an ethnicity and his character could pass for Arabian, Mediterranean, Hispanic or even Indian.

- One of the original ideas of the station was based on the Biblical Tower of Babel, meaning that it had been created over as long as three thousand years, through the co-operation of many different alien races who could not effectively communicate with one another, using different technologies that were often incompatible with each other. It was finally decided that the space station would be Cardassian in design, with lots of circular design elements.

- The Bajoran monetary system uses the Lita as currency. The Lita is actually the name of the currency of Lithuania. This country was occupied by the Russians from 1795 to 1918, and again from 1940 to 1991, much as Bajor was occupied by the Cardassians.

- "Raktajino", the often featured Klingon coffee beverage and favorite of the DS9 crew, is mentioned 47 times during the entire series. Whether this was another purposeful "47" reference is unknown.

- Andrew Robinson (Garak) was earlier considered to play Decker in Star Trek:The Motion Picture.

- Rene Auberjonois played Colonel West in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).

- Cast members frequently name Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Far Beyond the Stars (1998) as one of their favorite episodes, due to the 20th century setting, and because some could finally appear on the show without excessive make-up, like Armin Shimerman (Quark), Rene Auberjonois (Odo), Michael Dorn (Worf), Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun) and Marc Alaimo (Gul Dukat). In fact, writer Ira Steven Behr got very confused during production of this episode because he had trouble recognizing Shimerman without his usual Ferengi make-up.    

- Ferengi males are often shown wearing headdresses on the back of their heads, but some, like Quark, never wear a headdress. Aron Eisenberg responded to a question about it on Twitter saying, "It's because our prosthetic head only reached to the just above the neckline and they needed something to help cover it up, hence the headdress. Armin Shimerman's head reached further than his neckline to under his clothing. So, there you go!! It was all about the make-up."

[fancoloredglasses]

The two 90s Sonic the Hedgehog series (like that wouldn’t be confusing)

[All images are owned by Sega and DIC animation. Please don’t sue or Roboticize me]

(Thanks to TheNawaf258)

One cannot understate the importance of the spiny mammal with the freakish blue spines and even more freakish speed that bust onto the scene when Sega introduced the Genesis in the early 90s. Before Sonic, a certain company whose mascot was a certain plumber ruled the home video game market. Now we had a contest!

In fact, Sonic’s popularity was so huge that in 1993 not one, but two animated series were created by DIC Animation! The first, The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, made the weekday syndicated circuit.

(Thanks to Choones The Train Driver)

The series follows Sonic (voiced by Jaleel White, who played Steve Urkel in Family Matters) and his best friend (introduced in the second Sonic game) Miles Prower (a play on “Miles per Hour”) AKA “Tails” (so nicknamed due to the fact that he has 2 tails that he can spin like a propeller, enabling him to fly) as they defend the planet Mobius from...

Dr. Robotnik and his primary cybernetic cohorts...

...Grounder (left) and Scratch.

The plots (and gags) are straight out of Looney Toons. The bad guys are complete idiots who are easily thwarted by Sonic and Tails.

This series was definitely designed with the under-10 crowd in mind. As I was easily double that in ‘93, I wasn’t overly impressed with the series. However, if you would like to watch the series, it’s available on Netflix.

If I was less than thrilled at Sonic’s impression of Bugs Bunny, what DIC produced for the Saturday morning crowd was the exact opposite!

(Thanks to 90sCartoonIntros)

Sonic the Hedgehog sets a vastly different tone than Adventures does, making it in my opinion vastly superior to its weekday version.

Jaleel White again voices Sonic (just to add to the confusion), but this time he’s one of the inner circle of a group of freedom fighting animals attempting to free Mobius from...

...Dr. Ivo Robotnik (voiced by Jim Cummings, whose voice credits are too numerous to list but is the voice of Winnie the Pooh (and Tigger too!) since the late 90s), who has transformed most of the world’s inhabitants into cyborgs enslaved to him. Alongside his robotic army, Robotnik has transformed Mobius into a dystopian hellscape. Unlike the weekday kiddie fare in which Robotnik was trying to take over Mobius, he has actually succeeded and is the evil overlord of the world! Yes, this version of Robotnik is actually menacing, as opposed to a fat, bald Yosemite Sam in the weekday version.

Assisting Sonic in his fight are...

Princess Sally Acorn (voiced by Kath Soucie, who voiced Phil and Lil in Rugrats), the leader of the Resistance and the closest thing to a love interest Saturday Morning fare could show.

Antoine Depardieu (voiced by Rob Paulsen, who voiced Yakko Warner in Animaniacs and Raphael in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series), the incompetent comic relief who speaks in a stereotypically bad French accent and more than a little jealous of the attention Sonic gets from Sally.

Bunnie Rabbot (voiced by Christine Cavanaugh, whose many voice credits include Dexter in Dexter’s Laboratory and Chuckie in Rugrats), who is full of Southern charm and sass. She also had a run-in with Robotnik somewhere in her past, which resulted in her getting bionic legs and a bionic arm.

And of course you can’t have Sonic without Tails (voiced by Bradley Pierce, who voiced Chip in the animated Beauty and the Beast and played Peter in Jumanji) since they shared a video game together.

There is a definite edge, a sense of danger, and a small bit of body horror (when you consider there are living beings trapped within some of those robotic shells) to the series. If it was made with an older audience in mind, things could’ve been taken a bit farther, but it was the early 90s and Gargoyles and X-Men were still a few years away (and Batman: the Animated Series was still a new concept)

If you would like to watch an episode, it’s available on Roku.

As always, if you would like to see a particular episode reviewed, let me know!

[isfjmel-phleg]

Here, have some analysis literally no one asked for.

As far as I can tell, there are very few, if any, dramatizations of the original YJ kids that come close to their portrayals in the comics. For instance, there are plenty of animated and live-action adaptations that feature a Superboy/Conner Kent, but most bear little to no resemblance in personality and origin to the Kon-El of the 1990s/early 2000s comics. There are two versions that I am aware of that actually do specifically adapt the original Kesel-and-Grummett Kon, and these adaptations have something in common: they try to correct some of the problematic areas of the character's story.

Kon's first appearance in the comics includes such things as

his romantically pursuing and being pursued by adult women who are fully aware that he is physically sixteen but chronologically more or less born yesterday;

adults exploiting his naivete for their own gain;

and Superman's preventing Project Cadmus from killing him but doing nothing to keep him out of their ownership or away from the control of his corrupt manager.

This sets Kon up for a hundred-issue-long solo comic in which nearly every adult in his life fails him and he's left to blunder through life with minimal guidance while assuming everything that happens to him is either normal or his fault. It's a worrisome story, and while I do think it could be adapted as a deconstruction with full recognition that This Is Messed Up, neither of the adaptations I'm about to discuss have that scope and thus need to adjust some things.

First there's BBC Radio's Superman: Doomsday and Beyond (1993). This is an adaptation of the whole Death of Superman/Reign of the Supermen storyline that the comics were running that year. You can listen to the whole thing on YouTube; it's pretty good!

Kon's appearance in this adaptation is diminished from his role in the corresponding comics, most likely for concerns of brevity with such a sprawling story to cover. Nothing about the character is changed; he is a clone created by Cadmus who escapes, calls himself Superman, and joins in the climactic battle when the real Superman is restored to life. He appears to be a teenager, wears shades and a leather jacket, and flirts with every woman he meets. This Kon is voiced by an adult doing his best dopey teenager impression, which is hard to take seriously. Not that the character is very serious, but in moments when he needs to be heroic instead of the arrogant, petulant comic relief, it's not so effective.

The major change is in how his relationships with women are depicted. Tana Moon, the twenty-three-year-old reporter who gets her big break using him for a story and later goes on to be his love interest, is included in this adaptation. But instead of her eventually pushing for a romantic relationship, the interest is portrayed as completely one-sided on his part. He complains to her that she stood him up on an attempted date (...while calling her "man"), but she's too busy warning him that her employers are using him to respond. This Tana is also not complicit in the exploitation, unlike in the comics.

Roxy Leech is mentioned as the reason Kon so readily makes a deal with her father, but her role is nonspeaking, so her advances toward him as portrayed in the comics (including a creepy innuendo-ridden conversation over a video game played with joysticks) are omitted, and Kon just comes across as one-sidedly silly and immature rather than preyed upon. Which isn't...wonderful characterization, but relatively? less bad? than the original.

The full exploration of his tactile telekinesis and exact origins aren't explored (his last line is his conceding the Superman title back to Clark), but there's a line that does hint at the heart of the character. When trying to convince Tana to go out with him, he tells her he's been cleaning up his jacket and costume and insists that "if the original Superman was alive he'd be proud to have me for a clone." Not a line from the comics, but in keeping with his desperation to be accepted and meet expectations.

The need to correct Kon's story is more marked in the animated film Reign of the Supermen (2019). This is a much looser adaptation of that storyline and reinterprets Kon's backstory through the retconned lens of his being a clone of both Superman and Lex Luthor, created not by Cadmus but by LexCorp to be a pawn.

There is no Cadmus in this version, no Paul Westfield, no Dubbilex, no Tana Moon, no Rex and Roxy Leech. This Kon is still an exploited child, but this time that comes solely from Luthor, who is kind of a "stage parent" toward his clone and at one point almost kills him for failing to perform as desired.

This Kon is still very eager for female attention, but all his admirers while he's enjoying celebrity status are teenage girls around his (physical) age, not adult women. He still attempts to hit on older women, but this is portrayed as an effect of his lack of social skills, and unlike in the comics, the women are always disgusted. Mercy Graves complains that he's "too handsy" for her liking, and Lois Lane finds his attempts to flirt with her (starting by asking how old she is and insisting he's "old enough") "revolting."

Nevertheless, this version of the character has more adults who try to look out for him. Dabney Donovan, the scientist who created him, is kindly toward him and begs Luthor not to kill the boy--at the expense of his own life. (Cf. Donovan in the comics, who doesn't have that role and is rather villainous.) Even though Lois is annoyed by the boy, she's friendly toward him the few times they encounter each other. It's implied that something in his DNA from Clark makes him feel comfortable opening up to her. He confides his disappointment in learning about the human side of his DNA, and she reassures him. Almost like what Tana's role was intended to be for him, but minus the creepy grooming and using him to further her career.

Clark is taken aback when Kon addresses him as "Dad" when they finally meet, but he listens patiently to Kon's account of his "harrowing" life so far and refuses Luthor's demands for the return of his clone--"The boy stays with me!" Kon makes it clear that he wants to live with Clark. That doesn't work out, obviously, but the film's epilogue includes the newly renamed Conner's going to live with the Kents. ("Aww," Lois comments. "They'll eat him alive.") This changed ending is a practical choice, glossing over the comics' long complicated interval of his being more or less on his own, but it also rewrites his story so that more concern is shown for his welfare as a child/minor. He's being sent to a loving, stable home instead of being left to the exploitation of unscrupulous adults.

(...and then apparently this film series goes on to unceremoniously kill him off in the next installment, which negates everything, but for purposes of this discussion, I am choosing to ignore this.)

Anyway, here's where I should say something very intelligent about why adaptations make the choices that they do that would wrap all this up brilliantly, but this is all I've got. Except...note the difference in the adaptations' choices by date. The 1993 radio adaptation diminishes predatory behavior but tends to hold Kon in contempt for his gullibility. The 2019 film was more like THAT'S A CHILD and handled him mostly accordingly. Which I would consider a step up in character interpretation.

[hashirun]

The First Slam Dunk (2022) directed by Takehiko Inoue

The sports anime series Slam Dunk, which ran from 1993 to 1996, was based on the sports manga series written and illustrated by Takehiko Inoue. It follows the on-court exploits and progress of the delinquent Hanamichi Sakuragi, a freshman who joined Shohoku High School's Basketball Team to win the affection of his crush Haruko Akagi.

The anime series also spawned four animated films during that period. 26 years after the series ended with the Shohoku Basketball Team meeting up at the train station on their way to the Inter High, they finally released another film - The First Slam Dunk, which was written and directed by the manga's creator himself.

The team faces their strongest opponent yet in Japan's #1 team, Sannoh High. Sannoh is known for breaking the will of their opponents with their stifling defense and powerful offense.

At its heart, the film focuses on Shohoku High's second year point guard Ryota Miyagi. As a young boy, Ryota looked up to his talented older brother Sota. After losing Sota in a boating accident, Ryota continues to struggle with his grief as well as the burden to fill in his brother's shoes. Now on the biggest stage, Ryota fights to achieve what his brother never had the chance of achieving - to defeat the #1 team in Japan. I think this ties very nicely with how their Inter High run played out in the manga, and Ryota is the best character to use as a device to achieve that end, given how the other four characters pretty much already have solid motivations and aspirations as basketball players.

Even as the film focused mainly on Ryota, I'm glad the other four starting members also got their own highlight moments. Hanamichi Sakuragi provided comic relief and injected energy to the game. Hisashi Mitsui drained threes during very crucial moments, despite his exhaustion from being marked the whole game. Takenori Akagi struggled psychologically in his matchup against Japan's #1 center Masashi, but came to his senses and stepped up when it mattered. Surprisingly (or not, if you read the manga), the character who showed the most growth during the game was Kaede Rukawa. From someone who only trusted himself, Rukawa finally acknowledged that he cannot win the game alone, and as such began playing unselfish basketball much to the disbelief of everyone. This growth was never more obvious than during the very last play - an intense, agonizing, heart stopping moment which frankly brought tears to my eyes. What. A. Game!

[mzminola]

Completionist part of my brain: A lot of characters are introduced and/or get development in No Man’s Land, and it probably has ripple effects on the following arcs, so we should read it during our attempt to linearly get through Robin 1993.

The part of me that finds apocalypse and post-apocalypse fiction depression: Don’t want to :(

Attempted compromise: We could just stick to Tim’s comics, it’s a massive crossover event but Robin 1993 was for the slightly younger audience so even while it’s got Fucked Up Shit, it tends to be less grimdark than the rest. We could just ignore the crossover comics and live with being confused.

My suspension of disbelief, already hanging on by chipped nails, battered, bruised, and bloody: THE PREMISE MAKES NO SENSE, THE US GOVERNMENT DOES NOT GIVE UP TERRITORY UNLESS FORCED TO, MUCH LESS AN ISLAND A SINGLE FUCKING BRIDGE’S DISTANCE FROM THE FUCKING MAINLAND, MUCH LESS A MAJOR SHIPPING PORT. YES THE GOV DROPS THE BALL ALL THE TIME ON DISASTER RELIEF, BUT RELINQUISHING CONTROL OF A MAJOR FUCKING SHIPPING PORT IN NEW FUCKING JERSEY WOULD NEVER FUCKING HAPPEN THIS PREMISE MAKES NO SENSE IT MAKES NO SENSE IF DC WANTED APOCALYPTIC GOTHAM SO FUCKING BAD WHY NOT MAKE IT A FUCKING ELSEWORLD ONE-SHOT, IT MAKES NO SENSE NO SENSE NO SENSE--

Me: Maybe I’ll just keep putting this off and read more fanfic.

[classicdaisycalico]

Hve you watched the mario movie yet? 👀 Thoughts?

YES I HAVE AND IT'S AMAZING!!!!!!

For starters, this film is visually STUNNING. I also adore all the musical references scattered throughout the film score. I love how some parts are just thematic medleys, but other sections have a single motif worked into the film score. It's a cool way to breathe new life into some familiar themes like Bob-Omb Battlefield, for example. When we're not being flooded with musical references from the games, I like how the rest of the score is padded out with 80's music. Some people may not like that, but I do. I was raised on classic rock thanks to my parents, and putting 80's music in the film makes sense, since the series got its start in the 80's!

Now let's move on to the characters. OH MY GOD. The way their personalities were so fleshed out was incredible. Mario and Luigi's wholesome twin sibling bond was everything I envisioned it to be. I was also very pleasantly surprised by how Peach and Toad's characters were handled. Peach's personality, to me, could best be described as a fusion of Diana from the first "Wonder Woman" film (a girlboss who is still unfailingly kind and protective) and Ariel from "The Little Mermaid" (an ever-curious princess who is super curious about humans and wanting to learn more about their world and way of life). Toad was amazing because the writers could have exploited his character as this little guy who was hungry for adventure but ended up as the incompetent comic relief...but that didn't happen. They played up Toad's capability and loyalty to Peach and Mario super well, and it showcases great acting range on Keegan-Michael Key's part.

Speaking of actors, HOLY SHIT. I couldn't hear any of the actor's regular voices at ALL in the characters they played. I thought I'd have a massive problem with Chris Pratt as Mario, but that ended up not being the case. Jack Black also did an incredible job voicing Bowser. Probably the only time I heard Jack Black and not Bowser was during his "Peaches" song, but I don't mind that. Bowser has been known to have some goofy moments and dialogue before in the "Mario and Luigi" and "Paper Mario" games, so it's easy to let slide. If anything, Donkey Kong was the only character whose voice I had issues with. It was just Seth Rogen being Seth Rogen, typecast once again as a comic dudebro who gets knocked down a peg at some point to learn a little about humility.

Slight aside, by the way, I also like how Bowser is animated when he's angry. When he's angry in the film, you can literally see the insanity in his eyes. It's a fantastic little touch that the games don't normally have. (Yeah, he's full of rage, but his eyes don't show it anywhere near as well.)

Probably the only real issue I had was with the film's pacing. Just when we think we're going somewhere interesting in a scene, all of a sudden we're immediately transported elsewhere. The transitions are kind of jarring and I feel like a lot loose ends in the previous scenes aren't tied up properly. Hopefully the sequel will fix that. (And let's be real. There WILL be a sequel with how much money this film is making. This film is sooooo much more successful than that 1993 monstrosity lmao)

Overall, VERY solid film and a job very well done. 4 out of 5 (Super) Stars from me 🌟🌟🌟🌟

[adultswim2021]

Space Ghost Week

Wherein we cover an entire season of Space Ghost Coast to Coast over the course of a week

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #47: “Sphinx” | October 17, 1997 | S04E14

This one is pretty standard stuff, but the strength is in the guests. Harland Williams acts like Harland Williams, saying wacky stuff about monkeys and cheese. I’ve probably touched on this, but when I was in high school (which I’d just entered around the time this aired) I began developing annoying and pompous ideas about comedy and my main axe to grind was something I called “stock absurdity”. It was basically a short list of nouns that I felt like you could just sprinkle into your comedy prose and automatically get laughs from the easily-impressed. The list included monkeys, squirrels, and cheese, and I remember at this time pirates, ninjas, and robots were starting to become equally staid.

Anyway, I forgive Harland for this (I’m sure he’s breathing a sigh of relief right now). He clearly likes slipping that stuff into his comic soliloquies, but his toolbox is bigger than that. Him putting the screws to Space Ghost over his embarrassing and greasy varicose veins is pretty irresistible. At least he specified that they were ORGAN GRINDER monkeys and that they were hopped up on cheese STICKS. “Monkeys hopped up on cheese” would’ve come of much more amateurish. 

This is the one I always remembered as “the Mike Judge one”. Even though Harland makes up 50% of the show, I routinely forget that he’s also in this one. In fact I remember the pre-guest banter about Zorak mistaking a wacky fun slippery slide for his missing tail more than I remember Harland Williams being in this. And Harland isn’t even a lackluster guest. That’s just how much I revere Mike Judge (and wacky fun slippery slides).

Judge’s interview is slightly fraught in the same way the Terry Jones or Mark Hamill or Jack Black interviews were; you sorta sense that the staff are fans of the interview subject and that can lead to them getting way too into the spirit of the guest’s body of work and making a show that lacks edge and comes off sycophantic. The opening sketch of this one lets us know that the show is in good hands; Moltar is bugging Mike Judge for an answering machine message and it’s a contentious back-and-forth. Later, Mike turns this dynamic around on Space Ghost by attempting to do an impression of him, quoting lines from the first episode. Not only was there a mutual admiration thing going on here, but Mike knew exactly how to play his side of the interview to make this episode GREAT.

This one ends with Mike inexplicably doing lines as his various Beavis and Butt-head characters saying the phrase “It doesn’t get any better than this”, for reasons that are mysterious. To this day, if I find myself using that phrase in conversation I will, depending on who I’m speaking to, invariably follow it up with an impression of Mike doing all of his characters in this episode. I wish I knew why this was in the show. It seems like a weird inside joke to me. But I love it, even though I don’t get it. 

I’m a fan of a lot of shows, and Space Ghost and Beavis and Butt-head hold a similar space in my heart as shows that I almost can’t get enough of. I don’t really like binge-watching shows, except for those two. I can very easily watch both Beavis and Butt-head and Space Ghost all day long. I don’t know why this is the case, but it is. And it’s very weird to me that one of my most-quoted Beavis and Butt-head lines (behind Beavis saying “it’s for me. It’s for me to read” or “I’ll be damned it’s Dave Navaro”) come from this episode of Space Ghost. But there you go!

MAIL BAG

Your Zorak write-up made me realize that for the amount it's parodied I knew absolutely nothing about This Is Your Life. I wasn't even that sure it was a real show until I looked it up. Seems pretty bad/boring/cringe. Seems like an old-fashioned thing for Space Ghost to even spoof but I found out there was a version as recently as 1993.  There's some good raw footage on youtube where they try to surprise Angie Dickinson for this version and she refuses and cusses at them. Fun stuff!

I’ve done a whole lotta old-ass TV watching for no really good reason, and I’ve never once tried to watch one of those things. They seem too scary to me. Uh, Sid Caesar did a thing once where (gets blasted by Space Ghost’s destructo ray)

[shadowwingtronix]

"Yesterday's" Comic> Ultraverse Flood Relief

BW's "Yesterday's" Comic> Ultraverse Flood Relief

This comic was produced in association with the Red Cross after the Great Flood Of 1993, where Mississippi and Missouri got hit by a huge flood. Its continuity is questionable so this is where the reading order decided to shove it in. Malibu and Spartan Printing took on the printing costs and the donations went to relief efforts. Prime lifts a school bus from flood waters during a…

[popart20]

Right Said Fred are an English pop band formed by brothers Fred and Richard Fairbrass in 1989. They are best known for the hit 1991 song "I'm Too Sexy".

1989–1991: Formation

Prior to forming Right Said Fred, the Fairbrass brothers had been playing music since the mid-1970s: as part of a band called The Actors, the brothers had toured with Suicide and supported Joy Division at the Factory club in Manchester.

The Fairbrass brothers formed the group in 1989, with Richard on lead vocals and bass and Fred on guitar. Prior to forming the group, Richard was employed as a session bassist for artists including Boy George, Mick Jagger and David Bowie, and appears as the bass guitarist in Bowie's short film Jazzin' for Blue Jean. In 1987, Fred appeared as a guitarist in the Bob Dylan vehicle Hearts of Fire.

The group was named after the novelty song "Right Said Fred", which was a hit single for singer and actor Bernard Cribbins in 1962. The Fairbrass brothers were originally accompanied by drummer Ray Weston and guitarist Dan Kruse. Weston left in 1990 to join the progressive rock group Wishbone Ash and Kruse left the next year. Guitarist Rob Manzoli joined in 1990 and remained with the group until 1997.

1991–1992: I’m Too Sexy and Up

In July 1991, the group released its debut single and best-known song, "I'm Too Sexy", on the independent London-based record label Tug Records. The Fairbrass brothers have stated that the song's lyrics are centred on certain users of the gym they owned in London, who they claimed had no shame. "A lot of models used our gym, so we thought it was time to start poking (fun) at them," Fred stated.

The song was a considerable hit in the United Kingdom, spending six weeks at number two in the charts behind Bryan Adams' "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You", and three months in the Top 10. The song also went to number one in 32 countries, including the United States, where it topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song earned the band a nomination for an Ivor Novello award. "I'm Too Sexy" has subsequently been used in over 40 television shows and movies, including My Wife and Kids, The Simpsons, The West Wing, and EastEnders.

Their second single, "Don't Talk Just Kiss", with background vocals by soul singer Jocelyn Brown, was released in October 1991. It made number 3 in the United Kingdom Christmas charts, entered the top five in many countries, and reached number eight in the United States dance chart.

The success of the singles resulted in the band's multi-platinum debut album, Up, reaching number one in the United Kingdom album charts as well as charting worldwide. The album remained in the Top 40 for almost a year. In Germany a fifth single "Love For All Seasons" charted at # 65 in 1993.

In 1992, Heavenly Records released an EP that featured the label's acts covering Right Said Fred songs for charity. The Fred EP contains Saint Etienne (performing "I'm Too Sexy"), The Rockingbirds ("Deeply Dippy") and Flowered Up ("Don't Talk Just Kiss").

Remainder of the 1990s

1993–1994: Sex and Travel

Early in 1993 Fred, Richard and Rob wrote and recorded the Comic Relief single "Stick It Out", which was a top-five hit in the United Kingdom and in many European countries. In September 1993, Right Said Fred released its second album, Sex and Travel. Sex and Travel included the singles "Bumped" and "Hands Up (for Lovers)". The band received its second Ivor Novello award for "Deeply Dippy" in 1993.

1995–1996: Smashing!

Right Said Fred parted company with Tug Records and then released its third album, Smashing!, in 1996 on the band's own label Happy Valley Records, including the singles "Living on a Dream", "Big Time" and "Everybody Loves Me".

1997–2001: Manzoli leaves, You’re My Mate and Fredhead

Rob Manzoli left the band on friendly terms in 1997.

In 1998, Fred and Richard set up their own recording studio in London and started writing and recording what became the album Fredhead.

In 2000, Right Said Fred signed to Kingsize/BMG Berlin in Germany. The first single from Fredhead was "You're My Mate" (co-written with hard rock guitarist Myke Gray.

Other singles from Fredhead were "Mojive" (Ward) and "Love Song" (Agostino Carollo).

21st century

2002–2003: Stand Up

The second Kingsize/BMG album Stand Up was released in 2002. The lead single was "Stand Up (For the Champions)", composed by Clyde Ward and the Fairbrass brothers.

2004–2006: For Sale

Due to family ill-health, Fred and Richard took some time out from travelling to write and record the single "We Are the Freds" and the album For Sale for the Ministry of Sound. In late 2004, Right Said Fred toured extensively in Europe.

2007–2010: I'm a Celebrity

During 2007 and 2008, Fred and Richard collaborated with Clyde Ward to write and record their sixth album I'm a Celebrity. The album was produced by Ward, and for the United States release, Right Said Fred worked with David Levine at Promark Music. In late July 2009, Right Said Fred released "Sexy Bum" in Germany, the first single from the band's HITS! album. The band toured in support of the album in the United Kingdom and continental Europe.

2011–2012: Sexaholic

Right Said Fred collaborated with Norwegian writers/producers Dsign Music to record Sexaholic, released in 2011.

2013–present: Raise Your Hands

Richard spoke at an Oxford Union debate. TV appearances included an acoustic performance on the UK’s Celebrity Big Brother TV show.

RSF began writing and recording new tracks with Paul Statham (Dido, Jim Kerr, Kylie Minogue, The Saturdays). The band released the single "Sweet Treats" in January 2017 from the album Exactly! In August 2017, Right Said Fred's members Richard Fairbrass and Fred Fairbrass, were credited as songwriters on the Taylor Swift single "Look What You Made Me Do" alongside Jack Antonoff and Swift herself. The song's chorus is an interpolation of the famous chorus from "I'm Too Sexy".

In May 2022, Phoenix Music International released the band's single "Godsend", dubbing the duo the 'UK’s most controversial band' after a number of anti-COVID-19 vaccine-themed Twitter posts and appearances in the press during the UK pandemic lockdowns. In 2022, they were involved in leafleting for British anti-climate change activist group, Not Our Future, in Oxford.

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Wittgenstein

John Maynard Keynes (John Quentin) sits stiffly in a straight-backed chair while working a white, circular jigsaw puzzle and advises Ludwig Wittgenstein (Karl Johnson), “There’s nothing better than a warm sated body.” It’s a thrilling moment of separation between meaning and image that, nonetheless, makes some kind of aesthetic sense, like many of the images in the films of Derek Jarman. To call his WITTGENSTEIN (1993, Criterion Channel through month’s end) a biography of the man often called the 20th century’s greatest philosopher, would be like calling Martha Graham’s choreography of “Appalachian Spring” a blueprint for a barn. Jarman presents a series of images often separated from their meanings to create a new set of meanings. In this film, the images are lyrical and even at times comic meditations on the philosopher’s thought and life, sometimes narrated by Wittgenstein as a child (Clancy Chassay) and with key events announced by his sister, who’s shocked that he’s enlisted in World War I or is trying to publish his first philosophical work. Other elements of his life, like his homosexuality, are just givens, with Wittgenstein pondering the loneliness of the soul while in his lover’s arms. Jarman manufactures a personal conflict to explain Wittgenstein’s break with his mentor, Bertrand Russell (Michael Gough, who’s glowing as if it’s a relief not to be starring in cheap horror or a BATMAN film), and that scene rings false, but the comment on class underlying it makes sense (class is the elephant in the room in most modern British literature). Wittgenstein’s lover (a fictional character played by Kevin Collins) is the child of miners who sacrificed everything to send him to Cambridge. The philosopher, who romanticizes physical work, influences him to leave Cambridge and get a job as an engineer. Later, Collins is slacking off at his job to contemplate a game of dominos, because you can take the boy out of the philosophy seminar but you can’t take the philosophy seminar out of the boy.

[kevinsreviewcatalogue]

Review: Cool Runnings (1993)

Cool Runnings (1993)

Rated PG for mild language and brief violence

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2023/04/review-cool-runnings-1993.html>

Score: 3 out of 5

Based (very loosely) on the true story of the Jamaican bobsled team that competed at the 1988 Winter Olympics, Cool Runnings is, together with The Mighty Ducks and Air Bud, one of the first movies most people think of when they think of Disney's live-action offerings in the '90s, especially their sports movies. It takes the rules of a real-life sport and, in service to making a family comedy, asks how many giggles it can get out of the rules and quirks of that sport, typically by dropping in a weird twist like, say, a dog playing basketball, or in this case, a bunch of guys from a tropical island nation competing in a quintessential cold-weather sporting event. It's a charming movie that still holds up thirty years later, thanks to a very solid cast led by Leon Robinson and the late John Candy in his final film released during his lifetime, as well as a lighthearted sense of humor that knows it's corny and doesn't care. It's kinda shallow and makes mincemeat of the actual history in order to manufacture drama for its heroes to overcome (there's a reason why "Disneyfication" has been a joke for decades now), but it's a fun, funny sports movie with an interesting hook and some great moments to back it up.

Our protagonists Derice Bannock, Yul Brenner (no relation to the actor), Junior Bevin, and Sanka Coffie are four Jamaican guys who, thanks to some comic mishaps, wind up forming the first Jamaican Olympic bobsled team. Specifically, Derice, Yul, and Junior all dreamed of becoming track stars, but during tryouts for the Olympic national team, Junior tripped and took down Derice and Yul with him, sabotaging all their hopes for the next four years. Derice's friend Sanka, meanwhile, is the best pushcart derby driver in Jamaica, and don't you forget it. Derice, the son of the Olympic champion Ben Bannock, still wants to follow in his father's footsteps, and when he sees a photo of his late father with the former American bobsledder Irving "Irv" Blitzer, who has since retired to Jamaica, he gets the idea to recruit Sanka to form a bobsled team to compete in the upcoming winter games in Calgary, with help from a reluctant Irv (who only agrees because he knew Derice's father) to show them the ropes. Yul and Junior join soon after in order to round out the four-man team, as everybody else at the tryout was scared off by Irv telling them in graphic detail how dangerous the sport was. Up in Calgary, the Jamaicans have to contend with not only the harsh winter weather but also the skepticism and hostility of the other teams and the officials wondering what these four tropical dudes are doing here, while Irv has to grapple with the circumstances that forced him to retire from bobsledding in disgrace back in 1972, circumstances that do nothing to lessen the suspicion that the rest of the Olympic Village (not least of all his former American teammates) has of him and his team.

The Jamaicans all fit into recognizable "family movie hero" archetypes. Derice is the straightforward hero, the team leader out on the track who wants to live up to his father's legacy. Junior, meanwhile, is a rich kid who, as his name suggests, lives in the shadow of his own father, a proud self-made man who has planned out a life for him as an investment banker in America, and wants to forge his own destiny for himself. Yul is the tough guy who blames Junior for dashing his dream of becoming a runner and has to learn how to work as part of a team with the rest of the group. Finally, Sanka is the comic relief, about as stereotypical a "Jamaican dreadlocked rasta" as you can get without getting into the kinds of drug humor that, in the '90s especially, would've bumped this movie's rating past a PG. Their individual arcs are all fairly predictable once you realize what each of their conflicts is, as is their conflict as a group about proving themselves in the top-flight world of winter sports, in which the racial subtext is only explicitly stated in one line but is heavily alluded to in how the Jamaicans are seen as outsiders in the Winter Olympics. (A lot of this was largely invented for the movie, as in real life the Jamaicans were actually welcomed by the other teams simply for having what it took to get there in the first place, not least of all by the East German team, who in this film are presented as antagonists because, well, it was the early '90s and we were still celebrating the fall of communism.) Irv, meanwhile, has to confront how his past obsession with winning at all costs set him up for his greatest failure in a cheating scandal that took his teammates down with him, with Derice especially showing him how there can be dignity in walking away as something other than Number One.

It's all pretty basic afterschool special stuff that you'd expect from Disney, but I can't deny that this movie does it well, thanks largely to how good the cast is. Leon Robinson as Derice, Doug E. Doug as Sanka, Rawle D. Lewis as Junior, and Malik Yoba as Yul made the four bobsledders feel disjointed at the start of the film, a divided team that you feel is about to walk into a meat grinder in Calgary, making their growing camaraderie over the course of the film feel earned until they end the film looking and feeling like champions. John Candy, meanwhile, brought both his brand of humor and a surprising amount of gravitas to Irv, a former champion who failed his team once before and, in the course of training the Jamaicans, learns a thing or two from them along the way. The film's sense of humor was a good-natured mix of physical/slapstick comedy and dad jokes, from the Jamaicans' first reaction to Canadian winter weather at the airport to a running gag where Derice asks Sanka if he's still alive ("nah, man"), and much of it works thanks to how game the entire cast is for all of it. I watched this movie with my father on my birthday as a nostalgic throwback, to my childhood for me and to his "dad years" for him, and even without any children around, this movie did a very good job of making me feel like a kid again.

The Bottom Line

Cool Runnings is quintessential '90s Disney, a bit too shallow for me to call it one of their best films but still a solid, workmanlike family sports comedy that's elevated by its cast. Whether you're an aging, nostalgic millennial like me, a parent with kids of your own, or both, I recommend checking it out.

[iloveabunchofgames]

Week In Review - 3/19/23

#JakeReviewsItch Week In Review Archives

This week's reviews:

🧡🧡🧡🤍🤍 Amethyst Hearth 🧡🧡🤍🤍🤍 An Airport Game 🧡🧡🤍🤍🤍 An American Werewolf In LA 🧡🤍🤍🤍🤍 An Outcry, prologue 🧡🧡🧡🧡🤍 Anarcute 🧡🧡🧡🤍🤍 And All Would Cry Beware! 🧡🧡🤍🤍🤍 And Yet It Moves

It's Mario Time! This week, we're talking about Mushroom Kingdom lore, then getting serious about the man himself. No, not Mario....

Game of the Week

Who in here tryna start a riot?

I came dangerously close to rating Anarcute 3/5, maybe even 2/5. Before publishing my effusive 4/5 review, I wrote and deleted another draft that focused entirely on the game's controller issues. I love this game, and I could not play it. I hacked together a control scheme that kiiiiind of worked, but it never felt right, and I couldn't deny the truth: more of my attention was going toward that stress than was going to the game itself. Technical problems were ruining my experience, and my score had to reflect that. Win+Alt+R is the keyboard shortcut I use to capture game clips. I thought that if I were going to make this a single-issue review, I better record the "Best with a controller!" splash screen that appears every time the game is launched. This is how I discovered that holding Alt while the game is starting brings up a configuration tool. I mapped the game's commands to my controller, and... It worked. Just like that, my biggest problem wasn't a problem anymore. Anarcute is the best game of this week, the third-best game I've rated to date, and potentially unplayable if my solution doesn't work for you. Take that recommendation however you like. I haven't tried any of the console versions, but I'm certain that's the safest bet.

The Mushroom Kingdom

Princess Peach (Ms. Toadstool, if you're nasty) is the sole ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom. We accept this because we have no reason to dig deeper. I think most of us question it at some point, but we understand the Mario series. Princesses get kidnapped and rescued in fairy tales, so there you go, kids: A princess got kidnapped. She needs Mario to rescue her. There's your motivation. She wasn't meant to be a character who inhabits a world. She was a plot device waiting at the end of a series of digital obstacle courses.

There are nerds inside and outside of Nintendo who have convinced themselves that the Zelda series is somehow improved by pretending it tells coherent story. These are the same dorks who want you to believe that Mario Galaxy is the best one because "actually, the storybook stuff is really deep." Look, Super Mario Sunshine's cutscenes are high art, but Mario has never needed narrative drama. He's a funny cartoon guy who turns any situation into a fun cartoon. Is he political? Absolutely. Everyone and everything is political, but that doesn't mean we need to understand the legislative systems that govern his adoptive home.

The Mushroom King

In 1993, John Leguizamo taught us to trust the fungus.

What you might not remember, if you aren't a cinephile, is that the fungus is, in fact, Princess Daisy's father, the king.

More obscure than that is Nintendo Comics System's Super Mario Bros. series, from 1990. Check out this character from the first panel:

You are looking at none other than Princess Toadstool's dad, the King of the Mushroom Kingdom. And he doesn't just get transformed into fungus or something. He's a lead character!

Nintendo's attitude towrd Mario media is very different now from what it was in the '90s, but I've been paying attention to the marketing for this new Mario movie. I heard the Super Mario Bros. Super Show! song (and the original Toadstool's voice!) in that commercial. I heard that Luma giggle about "the sweet relief of death." The script was written by Matthew Fogel.

I don't think Nintendo would shoot down any attempt to put a king on-screen, but I guarantee we're getting jokes about how weird it is that this kingdom only has a princess. If I'm wrong about this, I'll... I'll...

Yeah! And just because I don't know when I'll have another excuse to talk about these comics, I leave you with the Raddest, Baddest Princess...

...and maybe the first official depiction of Baby Mario.

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