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popculturebuffet · 9 months

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Top 20 Animated Episodes of 2023 Part 1

Hello all you happy people! It's now 2024, and with 2023 behind us it's time for my faviorite yearly thing on this blog: my top 20 episodes of the year list!

For those of you new to this tradition or needing a refresher, each year I take 5 episodes each (or less if the show had less), from the various shows I watched that year, and then slowly wittle it down from a massive pile to the 20 best, split into two digestible parts, and let you all enjoy the results. It's one of my favorite things as it gives a nice, personal, wide berth of what happened in that year, gives this blog something unique to do, and allows me to touch on shows I haven't covered yet or may simply not get to for some time, if ever.

2023 was a mixed bag for me, both professionally and personally: It started.. with a kick in the teeth as my cat Stewie died after living a long, fufilling life of looking mildly pissed at everything but still being cute.

He was a good cat and his loss is something I still haven't fully gotten over a year later.

It was a harbringer of change: with Stewie's death we finally moved out of the house I lived in pretty much my whole life, and into a smaller, nicer and far better apartment with my own mini office in my room even and all my children/books/children returned to me. It's taken 6 months but I feel like i've fully settled into my new, wonderful home.

And towards the end of this year as the loss of Stewie still stung all this time later, I got another great change with the addition of Maddie

Maddie was the dog of a close friend of the family who had to go into a retirement home. She needed a home, and now has one in my room looking morose, licking my face and occasionally going under the bed for hours at a time like the cave goblin she is. She was a much needed bolt of sunshine in this storm of a year. I do metaphor good.

So with all these c-changes, how did this blog fair? Suprisingly great but not entirely in tact. Quality wise I do think I did some of my best work this year: I tackled the first apperances of every spider-man, woman and pig in into the spider-verse, the movie itself, finally web swining around a bit thanks to kev with a little more spidey planned for this year, with a tie in for Kraven later this year that's exactly what you think it is. I finally got to do an x-men month, covered rocko's modern life static cling for pride month, and in one of my finest hours, got to do a retrospective on one of my faviroite fairly recent comic strips breaking cat news with the help of my friend emma. Her sponsorship meant I got to cover something great and while few people have read it, i'm happy just to have it out there.

In addition to that I covered Tugs, an osbcure UK series and spirtual brother to thomas the tank engine that involved state mandated death dates for boats, pirates, and eleven minutes of explosions. I finally got to enjoy the madness that was the Telltale Sam and Max Games, with Save the World in the pocket and Beyond Time and Space wrapping up next week. And biggest, best and brightest of all I did a retrospecitve on little shop of horrors, finally seeing both the stage play and original corman film, as well as little shop. And someday i'll have recovered from seeing little shop.

The delay on that though brings me to the other shoe.. this year my productivity was in the basement and my week was at an all time low. Several reviews got delayed, from stewie's death leaving me unable to work for a few days for damn obvious reasons, to the move frequently taking my time or leaving me off balance. Not only that I didn't plan my time off for the move well, so I was left having to rearrange my whole schedule. It's why both pirate month and pride month, proud institutions on this blog, were reduced to a week and a three part special, something I wasn't remotely happy with. Things kept slipping by, and in general it wasn't my best year for getting shit done. I realized i'd simply taken WAY too much on, and thus have scaled back to ten reviews instead of 12 a month, and may scale back further if necessary: i'd rather these reviews be their best and get put through a spellcheck than be glad it's done only to realize I have nother thing that's due yesterday.

Not helping were towards the end of the year, a massively loud noise from my computer fan that made it hard to concentrate, something that's hard for my adhd ass in general let alone with a giant whirring fan that nothing can out loud, and having finally solved tha tproblem thanks to my dad's help.... then having my wrist go out, and while it's recovered now, it meant an extra week off, which sounds nice and was in places.. but was mostly spent in pain or asleep to escpae the pain till I got things to help with that. Then after a nice christmas, a lovely few days after... I got a cold, which spent up a large chunk of my vacation in a sick coma.

I apologize a bit for all the venting as you can tell this year's been a long one. I came out the otherside well with a loveable dog and a great new work/living space, but it was a bitch getting to here.

Thankfully animation wise, the industry wasn't in as MUCH turmoil this year. It still wasn't great: We got more cancelations with Lumberjanes and Phoebe and Her Unicorn announced formally dead before arrival had even started, and cancellations for Inside Job, Star Trek Progidy and Praise Petey, the last two seemingly in limbo as a result, with only one getting saved. While it wasn't the cancelnado of last year that wrecked many a service and nearly ended me, it was still pretty bad and Warner showed zero signs of learning from their lessons: after taking a few months off thinking the heat died down they tried canceling coyote vs acme.. only to then nakedly start a bidding war, making what they were really doing with most projects obvious: making them unaviliable.. and then starting a bidding war for other streamers. I'm not upset many of these shows are on other streamers as their safer from Zaslav there, but it shows just how nakedly greedy, transparently corrupt and blatantly fraudlent Warner Bros Discovery has become.

While the sales of the brilliant Merry Little Batman and sure to be great Batman: Caped Crusader to amazon are GOOD as Amazon has learned what animation means, it unmasks warner as simply doing all this tax writeoff shit to make money.. and then often forgetting to even sell the shows, not carring if no one's buying and just shrugging off someone's heart and soul being cast into the void. The loss of Final Space and Close Enough STILL stings and hasn't gone away even with the maker of the former both having found a way to finish the story and move on with his life.

The cherry on top of this shit sundae is Zaslav, no shit, saying the decision to shelve Batgirl, a movie that was entirely done and could've had the elseworlds label slapped on it if they didn't want it in the DCU, BRAVE. Yes that.. really happened.

It wasn't just Zaslav fucking up this year though, as other execs certainly tried their hardest or were arm and arm with him: The biggest blunder is obviously the strikes which while not affecting animation for the most part, was still a long dark night of the soul that was entirely the fault of executives not wanting to give up the precious theorietical money they could make once AI gets to the point it can create actual things, nor the likenesses of DEAD PEOPLE they should have no right to. Exec behavior was at it's most disgraceful this year... I don't know how that bare somehow got lower but that's the hellscape we're in with both zaslav and iger beign part of the corprate hydra that kept rejecting any deals presented and tended to flip the table and leave in a huff , leaving the negotations for weeks at a time till it became apparent that no amount of veiled threats of starving them out.

That said the strikes... were a net positive: they were long, brutal and threw tv off and delayed a show or two.. but it was well worth it. It helped show just how much actors and writers of all pay levels are needed, got them badly needed pay increases and protections and left the door open to help fiddle with AI protections as while AI isn't remotely good at creating scripts, that's never stopped execs from promoting something anyway. Despite MANY attempts to demonize the strikers, frame them as hollywood elites despite the fact the bulk were just trying to live on and were putting their liveleyhoods at stake to make sure they had one, or paint them as the bad guys.. it never worked. The public held firm, the strikers held firm and deflected most attempts with solidarity, with said big fish they tried to use as propoganda.. instead gladly donating to help the strike keep going. Fran Drescher and co fought hard, and the result is a slightly better hollywood.

And that hope for a brighter future really radiated this year: while Animation is still in flux in places, a lot of the networks hit hard by corprate dumbfuckery last year started to regrow: Netflix, after a year or two of rapid cancellations and baffling decisions, finally regrew it's animation divsions: Outside of Inside Job, most cancelations were shows that really weren't the best idea or execution to start with, and most hits got renewed, with them even picking up Star Trek Prodigy for another season and likely as many as they can carry. They pivoted more to adult animation with hits like Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Pluto, Castlevania Nocturne, Carol and the End of the World and Blue Eyed Samurai, the latter three I wish I got to but i've heard are incredible.

While WBD was still BURNIN DOWN THE HOUSEEEE, it snuck in a few hits with My Adventures with Superman and tons of great stuff I did'nt get too like Scavengers Reign, the beginning of the end for Craig of the Creek, Fired on Mars, and Hair Love, while having a suprise banger in the form of Tiny Toons Loonveristy, proving just how to reboot a classic property once again. Not only that the finale movies for Venture Bros and Metalocalypse came out, which given the last year was a huge fingers crossed thing. But both came out, I got both on blu ray, and got neat posters with them in the bargin and both closed up two of adult swims best series in the way they richly deserved. We also got an Urkel Christmas Movie. I guess.

Amazon continued it's own building: in addition to the dark knight picups mentiond, Invincible and Legend of Vox Machina both had amazing season 2's, with Vox Machina picked up for two more seasons to close it out proper and a Mighty Nein spinoff, with a Belles Helles Spinoff all but guarnateed at some point, and Hazbin Hotel after a truly agonizing year of waiting for someone to announce they had it, finding a perfect home for the happiest place in hell.

Finally, the indie scene, already thriving blew the fuck up. For the first time I nominated six diffrent pilots from various indie creators who all did a fucking great job: Godspeed, Lackadaisy, In Limbo, Atlas and the Stars, and Swift Spark and the Defensive five all had impressive showings and I regret not watching Lackadaisy in time to support it, but I can't wait to see what it brings to the table and to see all of these shows make it to series, not to mention up coming ones like ToonrifiqTariq's "Hey" that are likely going to come out next year.

It's a strange time for animatoin.. but one tha'ts proven you can make your own way, that the big coprations are trying and that in film.. is at one of i'ts brightest: while there ere some stumbles we had masterpieces like Nimona, which also made disney look horribly stupid for homophobically canceling it, Across the Spider verse (which needed to treat it's animators better but still deserves mention), and TMNT Mutant Mayhem.

It was a hell of a year and I can't want to share the best of it with you. And as a result of such a good year there's a few firsts: This is the first year with Anime included and if you want to know why i'ts taken so long it wasn't snobbery.. I just.. plain forgot to watch the ones I DID want to watch the past few years. That's... really it. I usually prefer reading the manga, as it's both faster and less time consuming, and Some of the best often aren't on the streaming platforms I do have. Pluto and Scott Pilgrim got by by being adaptations of something I love with all my heart a piece and thus coudln't bear myself to miss, but I might try to vary up my viewing more next year. I do want to check Zom 100 out at some point.

Anyways the other is that I allowed two dtv movies in here. Now this is with a caveat: It has to be directly linked to an existing animated series, a sequel, a prequel, etc. It's something I never really thought about before, but makes sense: While Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart and Army of the Doomstar were both considered for my film list too and are films.. their the proper conclusion to their stories. Not only that with Pluto's inclusion on this list, we have a series that had episodes only about ten minutes or so shy of both films runtime, so I figured fudging the rules like this was fair. I would've included Craig Before the Creek, but I want to wait to watch it when it comes on HBO Max next month.. and buy it on Physical as I don't remotely trust WBD to keep digtial copies up forever anymore. And really it feels in the spirit of things like operation zero back in the day or in both metalocalypse and venture bros own histories, all this and gargantua 2 and doomstar requieum.

Okay now that's settled this years list is intresting as while there's a decent amount of returning shows most haven't been on this list before. Of the nominees the only returning shows are The Legend of Vox Machina, Invincible, Helluva Boss, The Great North, Miraculous and Big City Greens, with mainstays like Tuca and Bertie and Close Enough sadly gone thanks to WBD being pralines and dicks. Thus our shows competing are an eclectic mix of returning combatants, one for sadly the last times, revivials of old shows, reboots of old shows, two limited series, and a handful of spectacular pilots

These are the shows that I got to see this show and thus entered the running, all sorted by platform since.. there's a lot.

Amazon Prime: The Legend of Vox Machina Invincible

HBO Max: YOLO: Silver Destiny Clone High Tiny Toons Looniversity Adventure Time : Fionna and Cake Aqua Teen Hunger Force My Adventures with Superman Disney+: Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur The Owl House (Final Year) Kiff Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir Big City Greens Hulu: The Great North Futurama Bob's Burgers The Simpsons Netflix: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (Limited Series) Pluto (Limited Series) DTV: Venture Bros: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (Special) Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar (Special)

YouTube: Helluva Boss Godspeed Lackadaisy In Limbo The Amazing Digital Circus Atlas and the Stars Swift Spark and the Defensive Five

So with our nominees in clear view, who shined the brightest, who didn't and whose going to yell at me over my choices? find out under the cut!

FULL SPOILERS FOR MOST EPISODES ON THIS LIST. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED

20. The First Episode (Atlas and the Stars, Pilot)

"Sorry for dragging you into this man. You don't have to trust me but I promise to make this up to you, I swear."

Coming in just under the wire as the last released episode on this list, it's placing is just a fun concidence, we have The First Episode... the pilot for new series Atlas and the Stars. You can watch it here

youtube

So it's come up soon but the reason I put MOST episodes on the spoiler warning.. is this pilot and another on the list, I really DON'T want to spoil much as both rely on you watching it, this one in paticular not revealing what the show's premise will be from here on out, instead telling the parallel tales of Atlas, a human from a dying planet who hyjacks a space ship to acheive her dream of endless freedom in the stars, Atmosphere, a shy loveable alien embarking on his first day regestring ships at a space port, and Quasar, the lord of a mysterious planet who keeps having to sacrifice.. somethign to a portal to keep it alive... and it can't keep up forever and his beligeured assitant nebula. ALl of this comes togeter in a beautifully animated, well active and creative sci fi adventure with one hell of a hook from where it goes form here, awesome character desgin work and some neat sci fi tek in Atlas' googles. Miranda Toomey used every inch of whateve rbudget she had to make this and it turne dout gorgeous, and I can't wait to see the next episode in this and how this story progresses. It's well done, gorgeous, heartfelt and engaging and I recommend you go watch it before we move on to our next entry.

19. Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (Venture Brothers, Finale Movie) "All you need to know is the person who gave birth to you loves you, I promise you that"

From a start to a finish we have Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart, the long awaited and thankfully came out with a dvd and everything ending of the Venture Brothers. It's shockingly low on this list, but as much as I love this series.. it came out in a tight year with some even better finales, and had the burdern of having to cram in a season's worth of content, even with the cuts they made, into an 84 minute film.

The results are still excellent: Radiant is a fun, frantic race to the finish line that satisfyingly answers a lot of the series biggest questions: Who the boys mom was, how Monarch and Rusty are related, can HELPER fire a shot gun, will Hank and Dean reconcile... all the closure we needed in a tight 88 minute story that also includes classic hip hop traick it's takes 2, magnetic shenanigans, Hank using giant novelty checks for money, dermott using a piss filled super soaker, dean thinking he's a vampire, a halfway house for supernatural heroes, and Mantilla, one of the series most delightful villians and one I really wish we'd gotten proper time with. It's a joyous reaffermation of what this series is about, has nice moments for most of the best cast members, including Brick Frog my beloved, and ends on a mostly satisfying note. It also gives us a golem made entirely of pants and isn't that the greatest adventure of all?

18. "Lights, Camera, Sparks?!" (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Episode 5)

"You've known him for three f***ing days!" "Is that all it's been?!" Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was an easy faviorite this year and given my longstanding love of the Scott Pilgrim comics and like of the movie, it wasn't a huge shocker i'd love whatever the anime turned out being. I was pumped from the announcement, worried it'd just be "the movie but animated" when the cast was announced.. and then over the moon when it turned out that no, the cast was all coming back but the take on the franchise was all new.

What we got wasn't the straight adaptation that was pitched.. and was all the better for it. If you haven't seen Takes Off.. please do it's fantastic, I did a whole review on it, go, and if you won't then this is your last warning as I can't really talk about the episodes of it on this list without getting into spoilers as it's one of those series where the first episode twist.. defines the rest of the show.

Okay we good. So the first episode progresses as normal, a few tweaks to let you know this is it's own universe, enough character moments to show that even with the film voice actors the main cast is closer to the comics..... then Scott seemingly dies.

From there things go off the rails, and that's where the magic kicks in: While Scott's still key to the story and turns out, naturally, NOT to be dead, instead kidnapped by a mysterious portal, Ramona takes the lead, with us getting to know her better now she's the pov character instead of the guy worshipping the ground she skates on. While Ramona was fleshed out in the comics, the series gives her more to do as she solves this mystery. It's intriguing, it's fun, and it gives Mary Elizabeth Winstead the chance to play a more fleshed out version of the character with more sides to her than "aloof".

What the series also does well.. is go the fuck off the rails. Matthew uses his newfound confidence to punch gideon out of all his companies and fancy suits, Gideon becomes the best worst couple with julie, and Young Neil becomes a spacey moron who assumes the mysterious person writing a script based on how the story originally went is his sleep paralysis demon. The series has a lot of great character, animation and development as Ramona's forced to .. talk with her exes instead of her new boyfriend punching most of them for her.. but it can't be forgotten it's also delightfully nuts, easily the goofiest this franchise has gotten and i'm here for it.

That brings us to "Lights, Camera, Sparks?!", easily the biggest shit post of the entire series, and one of the funniest episodes of the year easily. While the previous ones are a bit melancholy in tone with the goofy stuff as a nice side dish, fitting how scott pilgrim rolls, LCS is just one long farce with Ramona struggling to get any detective shit done while Wallace wrecks envy and todd's relationship, Edgar Wright but voiced by Kevin McDonald slowly looses his mind, and Neil gets into various shenanigans while only being a quarter aware of anything going on, including what was in the script his sleep paralysis ramona from the future wrote.

The setup is simple: Toronotwood is making a film based on how scott's story usually go, again ghost written by a mysterious sleep paralysis demon, and hired Lucas and envy to play scott and ramona. Lucas got can...something for dating a 30 year old who looks like a high schooler, so now i'ts todd clumisly shoved into Scott's clothes. Wallace is also there, having throughly humilited the notoriously straight actor playing him out of a job and letting his ego grow 15 sizes that day.

What follows is a mocumentary masterclass as Envy and Todd can't stop being horny for two seconds, Wallace making out with Todd and being his bi awakening reading them to constantly "run lines in his trailer", Neil is hilaroius and you will repeat everything he says and Ramona is left bobbing around unable to actually get any answers.

This all leads to a delightful explosion as Todd falls in love with Wallace, Wallace is a callous dick, Wallace sicks his stunt doubles on Envy, Ramona is sicked on them, and everyone is confused, all cumilating in todd binge eating poutine and crying, an option I wish americans had but alas we are poutineless while Matt shuts down the production then sputters like a kid who got a lucky punch in on his bully when he finds out Scott is alive. Also Knives and Stephen get a meeting with him leading to the greatest musical of all time.

As you can tell this episode is very stupid and I love it. It's just 100% nonsense the whole way through, letting Wallace do something since the only main character who isn't Ramona he interacts with is in the future right now. There isn't much to disect, i'ts just pure comedy gold with props to both Kirean for really nailing a more douchestastic wallace and especially Brandon Routh who has shockingly deep comedic chops. A great episode and a nice break before we dive full speed into just where Scott went.

17. Lackadaisy (Pilot Episode)

Old Man River! That seems far too austere a name for something made of mirth and rage. O, roiling red-blood river vein. If chief among your traits is age, You're a wily, convoluted sage.

Is "old" the thing to call what rings the vernal heart of wester-lore? What brings us brassy-myth made kings. And a preponderance of bug-type things. To challenge titans come before!

O, demiurge to a try at Avalon-once-more?

And what august vitality in your wide aorta stream. You must have had to oversee alchemic change of timber beam to iron, brick and engine steam!

Your umber whiskey waters lance the prideful, sober sovereignty of faulty-haloed temperance, and wilt her self-sure countenance; Yes, righteousness is vanity. But sport's for imps, not elderly.

So if there's a name for migrant mass of veteran frivolity That snakes through seas of prairie grass and groves of summer sassafras; a name that flows as roguishly as wild waters, fast and free, It's your true name: Mississippi.

That beautiful poem opens up Lackadaisy, thank you wiki so I didn't have to transcribe that whole glorious thing, as a roustabout cat in 1927 St. Louis names rocky spends the first few minutes playing fiddle, basking in the glorious moonlight and waxing poetic about the mighty missisipi. It's a beautiful opening that shows off the series deft animation and MIssouri setting, something that makes me want to learn more about my own state's history. It's clear from the word go a LOT of love and research went into this setting, and given creator Tracy Butler had started Lackadaisy as an even MORE lavishly drawn webcomic.

Lackadaisy has a simple setup: three cats working for the titular saloon, Rocky, our dreamy narrator and mild loon, Freckle, his grumpy sidekick whose perhaps a bit TOO good with a gun, and Ivy, a peppy girl who takes jabs at Rocky and flirts with Freckle. I .. I ship the fuck out of it. These two are adorable. The three are robbing a body for canadian hooch but have to deal with the deathly serious and deathly hot, Mordecai Heller and his much more excitable, jokey and bloodthristy associates Serfafine and Nico Savoy.

The short is mostly a tense back and forth between both parties as our heroes barely surivive, we get a lot of good Ivy and Freckle content and Rocky saves the day by hyjacking a goddamn steam shovel and loading it with dynamite while waxing poetic and laughing madly. If that's not enough to get you to check it out if you haven't, I have clearly failed in some way as Lackadasiy is excellent and like Atlas and the Stars, leaves me wanting more of this cast. I'll defintely be reading the comic and plan to at least try to get the print editions coming up soon, as the pilot does a good job of showing who these characters are simply by action.. but leaving you questioning WHO they are and how they all ended up in a failing saloon, and why say Mordecai spares Ivy towards the end. Whatever it is I only want more of this, and am so happy those of you who weren't late adoptres like me helped get us a full season 1. Thank you so much and I can't wait for this show to show up here again. It's gonna be a riot and Micheael Kovach steals the show any time Rocky speaks, while SunWongCho is just... amazing as Mordecai and gives us a great antagonist to work with, a classic mystery man whose side your not sure who he's on, you just know he's a threat when he shows up.

16. Simon Petrikov (Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake, Season 1 Episode 2)

Does somebody jump for joy? Does somebody cry? Now that I'm not part of that sadness? Does somebody want me now? Now that I can’t fly? Now that I'm not part of the madness? Part of the madness?

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake surprised the hell out of me in the best way possible. See while I never stopped caring in SOME way about adventure time, my dropping off mid series after ... THAT happened in Breezy, only coming back occasionally for an episode or two, the orgalorg arc and the finale, I really wasn't interested. I did enjoy the two episodes of Distant Lands I saw, Stakes was excellent and Together Again felt like a more fitting final chapter to the series. Both didn't feel like continuation of the story: Stakes was a coda giving us the Bubbline content CN denied us and Together Again is an Epilogue, set at the very end of Finn's story.

So I was kind of.. Meh on Fionna and Cake's announcment. I wasn't against it but I'd just never really cared about these two, with the series having made two great episodes about them (and two more I hadn't seen at the time), but the whole "created by a creepy old guy" part of it always held me back from fully embracing these two. I was badly hoping they'd throw away the whole fanfic conceit and just move on.

They didn't do that.. but Fionna and Cake not only found a way to revitalize that, but reminded me WHY the original series was so strong. Fionna and Cake grew up with the original audience, a piece about metafiction, fandom, growing up, and depression all made wonderful and really stretching the property as far as it'll go and i'ts unexpected season 2 greenlight makes me all too excited.

The thing I was most excited for though.. was still greatly done. Alongside Fionna and Cake getting a slice of life makeover thanks to Simon going back to "normal", we get some closure for Simon who ended the series seemingly fine: Betty is gone, but he's sane, Marcy gets her real dad back, job done right?

Adam Muto, Adventure Time's ep from season 6 and the archeticht of most things from Rebcca Sugar's leaving till present day, disagreed, planning a simon special for distant lands before rewriting it for this series. And it points out something a lot of fans noticed about this ending: it's.. not okay. Simon lost betty AGAIN, and is now trapped in a world he never made.

And the series makes this into his arc, how does he fit into this world, and what he tries to do to escape it instead of dealing with it. Simon Petrkiov paints a picture of where Simon's been in the 10 year time jump between Come Along With Me and his debut in this series, Simon Petrikov.. and it's a deeply depressing picture.

Simon's a living exhibit on the humans floating island, unable to connect with his fellow humans as he can't relate to them in any way shape or form. He's a 20th Century man and their 24th century men and women. Not helping is an overzealous, or sweet fan girl he keeps shooing away who just CAN'T understand that the man who wrote Fionna and Cake.. ISN'T the same guy making toast in a fake apartment and watching Cheers every day. The Ice King was PART of simon, but they were never the same person and every reminder of the hell the poor man went under, the things he did, the people he hurt just reminds Simon how far away he is from home.

Not helping is something all too common with depression and trauma, something I know all too well... Simon won't open up to people. He doesn't get help (and as we learn via a minerva bot in the finale Therapy was ALWAYS there for him), and he keeps space from the surrogate family he does have. He dosen't want to "ruin" marcy finally being in a good place and thus barely calls her, content to just visit and pretend things are okay. Finn TRIES reaching out.. but while he's older, wiser, and beardier now, and to my delight still with Huntress Wizard (and in headcanon in a throuple with Flame Princess, but that just me. ), but he's still an adrenline junky raised by a loveable manchild who can't quite relate to someone like Simon, who just wants his old life back.

All this is punctuated by the return of Rebecca Sugar, who sings the beautiful and tragic "part of the madness" which sums up where Simon is: he's normal, he's who HE wants to be.. but the world simply feels like it rejects him, when really he's just as much rejecting it. Instead of trying to find some calm in the storm of this life and admit he needs help.. he chases betty, trying badly to get her back even though it just.. isnt' possible.. and causing this series as a result. He just can't let go.. but the series shows him he has to if he wants to truly live.

15. Miraculous World Paris : Tales of Shadybug and Claw Noir (Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir World Special 4) | In the daytime, I'm Gabriel Just a normal man, with a normal life But I have a secret I must keep at any cost Or all hope will be lost. Miraculous! Fear is a cage! Hear the message, answer the call! Miraculous! Yes, you can change! The power of love will free us all! Miraculous!

Yeah after two years of watching it, Miraculous Ladybug actually made this list. I'm shocked i'ts both this high AND this good. See while i'm a fan of Miraculous Ladybug, most of the fandom is more a fan of what it could be, the potetial it'd have if Thomas Astruc hadn't been the one mostly running it for 5 seasons and running it straight into the ground into the molten core of the earth. The Recent film, while far from perfect, felt like more what the series SHOULD'VE been, with the secret id bullshit resolved by the end of what's essentially movie/season 1, Gabe given more depth etc.

So i'ts ironic that in the same year the show itself, via it's spinoff specials gives us ANOTHER universe that's way better than the mess they've made of the main timeline with Miraculous World Paris. Mirror Universes are nothing new, to the point Kev and I have a whole series on mirror universe episodes featuring this very special planned, starting later this month.

With Ladybug's lack of subtley, misuse of good ideas and goofy incompetence, I assumed this special would be at best goofy fun with overblown multiverse and mirror universe tropes. Instead... it's the single best episode of the shows run, a truly moving piece that made me enjoy mirror universes again the same way Fionna and cake has made me enjoy AU's again

Miraculous knows just the right way to make evil counterparts: instead of the earth 3 versions of Marinette, Adrien and Gabriel the complete opposites of our heroes or just "Evil, Evil and less of a prick", Shady Bug, Claw Noir and Betterfly are all the same people we've come to know, simply gone down a diffrent route. Gabe is a better person, having STARTED as his earth 1 shitheal self working with his earth's eviil shadow overlord supreme... the loss of his life somehow changing this course. Instead of using the butterfly miraculous to try and bend the world in shape to get his wife back, he honors her legacy as Betterfly, helping others, something that seems IMPOSSIBLE for our gabe to consider without an ulterior motive.. but all too plausible if he just let go of his ego and his wife and let her die in peace instead of holding her in a dome coma and fighting teens. If he accepted he can't control something

Likewise Shadybug is Mari if Alaya hadn't befriended her, if Chloe just kept bullying Mari and Mari never stood up to her, the bullying just made her worse. If her parents WEREN'T there to support her: the bakery and her room is.. but it's very clear her alternate parents just aren't the loving duo our Mari's are. This is the kind of Mari that would've easily become an akuma.. but instead becomes something WORSE thanks to Supreme, a mysterious entity linked to the guardians, very heavily implied to be earth 3 Master Wu, who gives out the miraculouses to those who can tighten his grip on earth, and selected Mari and an Adrien who never went to school and thus never got out of his shell and is even MORE distant form his dad due to Gabe's new job as his pawns.

It results in a tearful battle as our heroes are both forced to TRUST the best life version of their nemisis, and battle what easily could'e ben them, while their counterparts find out , after Shadybug tries the wish thing, that supreme was using them and their lives are being drained by overusing their powers, explaning why the regular miraculouses limit our heroes to one use of their powers and limited timing. This is what happens otherwise and Monarch is all too happy to take advantage of that. There's more to this special, a lot more I can't wait to explore in april, but needless to say Miraculous World Paris.. is what I wanted from this series: a creative, tightly told, heartbreakingly well done superhero story with tense action, creative uses of the kwamis, and good character stuff for BOTH versions of our protagonists. I'ts a true masterwork and I wish THIS is the show we got more consistently.

14. The Amazing Rudy (Bob's Burgers, Season 14, Episode 2)

"I kinda walked away on dinner with my dad and her boyfriend and dad and his vicky for the first time which I guess how family dinners are gonna be from now on and I guess technically... I ran away"

It's weird but despite my deep love of the Great North (Which for the first time since it's debut missed the list this year, but damn did it have a good one, even if season 4 had to wait for 2024), until this year I wasn't consistently watching it's sister show Bob's Burgers anymore. I liked Bob's, I loved the movie, I had nothing against it. But any time I tried to get back there'd be an episdoe that just took me out. So now while I won't watch every episode, I still watch most, as the show is good as ever, if not on a comeback after a few seasons apparently felt (if TV Tropes is a good indciator) as very hit and miss. Season 14 is fantastic and it's no surprise it's second episode ended up being one of the series best.

The Amazing Rudy is something completely different in tone and staging, with a more melancholy peanuts style soundtrack, a somber tone and more muted humor. It fits perfectly, as the episode isn't centered around the Belchers this time but Louise's best friend, future husband and morality pet Rudy. The show has had secondary character spotlights before, Rudy getting a few himself, but usually the Belchers are still front and center and one of them still plays a major role in following this character around. For instance a few episodes later we get "bully-leive it or not" a zeke spotlight episode, but one where the other three kids are still very present: Zeke and his shameful past are the focus, but Louise and Tina still figure heavily into the plot, louise nearly bullyign Zeke's former bullying victim thinking the guy bullied zeke and that's why zeke freezes up seeing the guy, while Tina guiding the kid around is what kicks things off. The two aren't the focus, but it still feels like a bobs burgers adventure, helped with a bob subplot where he grapples with Jimmy Pesto, now played by Eric Bauza after a long absence thanks to his previous actor being an insurrectionist which lets face it Jimmy totally also was or at the very least thought about before finding the air fair was too much.

Here the focus is on Rudy to the point it feels like an episode of a Rudy spinoff show that does not exist but we now all want it too. It's still in Seymour's Bay (Which I forget is the name of the town this show takes place in as mostly people we know are in wonder wharf or on ocean avenue), just following Rudy as the lead instead. The Belcher's show up, in the middle of a bob's burger's episode we'll never see about Gene getting good grades and thus getting baked potato lasagna, a recipie he made up and assumes "everyone else must enjoy" is part of the reward, with the payoff him realizing he can't force someone to love his abomination, but he CAN have their portions. Being Rudy's closest friends and future wife it makes since there the ones he talks to when he goes to the mall with his dad to get a magic trick for the night and a snappy hat when he crosses them.

The Belcher's presence also hammers home what Rudy's dealing with though and that's.. a loss of family. Rudy's Parents are divorced. This isn't a new fact as it's come up casually in the past: being the kids Teddy, i.e. the person closest to them in their age group to be clear, not the person who defintely has passed by the restraunt at night every night and just.. stares in the window. But being the kids most prominent supporting character, with Jimmy Junior and Zeke a close shared second, we've gotten to know him: his parents divorce is amnicable, he alternates weekends, and they've both moved on. We haven't really seen his mom but Rudy seems just fine with her and with his dad being his primary caregiver, is a bit closer to him, as shown in this ep as the two are adorably in synch and have their rythm.

See Rudy didn't LOOSE his mom or dad, both are still very present.. but he lost the three of them as a family and until recently had their monthly "We're still a family' dinner", what, as we learn in a heartbreaking montage i'll get too shortly, was a monthly family dinner and became a way to show that both his parents still loved him and still liked each other even if they weren't together. The problem is while a well meaning gesture, both parents have started bringing their partners, which is fair but makes it less a family dinner.. and more Rudy stuck with four adults having a hangout who accidently forget he's there. While I never went through one of these as a middle schooler when my parents broke up, I know the type of event Rudy deals with all too well: it's mostly adults, there's no one to talk to and your alone. Granted I was fine with it because I just.. read whatever book I brought anyway, but rudy is a social butterfly, an awkward awkward butterfly, so he has no idea how to handle this, or really deal with it.

His one ace in the hole is a magic trick, from his faviorite shop, the same one we saw in the magic episode way back. See while Rudy's love of being a magician is another character trait that's come up, this episode gives weight to it: Rudy got into magic not just because he dearly loves it and the person at the shop gladly mentors him and supports his talent, but it's seen in a montage of previous dinners that any time his parents started fighting, before and after divorce, a simple trick reentered the night and reminded them what's important.

Naturally the trick, done using a glass of drinking water and some tablets, goes wrong, and while Rudy's parents encourage him to try again and no one really is mad at him or upset it went wrong and spilled everywhere, he feels utterly humiliated, something we all went through as kids: you screw something up and while your parents don't make a deal out of it, you just can't. Hell I still have that problem. So combine that with already not wanting ot be here and Rudy bounces, his parents not aware he's gone.

Naturally, given the earlier setup, he bounces to the Belchers. And it's easy to see why: The Belchers are a loving, wonderful family, and Bob and Linda not only gladly let Rudy join, but engage with him in a way Rudy's parents simply forgot. Rudy's parents aren't callous... adults simply make mistakes and in likely trying ot make sure rudy's okay with both their partners being there, their partners feel good, the million other things they got going on.. they talked over Rudy. It's what makes this work: we feel for rudy, but it stings more that this isn't some problem with an easy fix. There will be plenty more dinners where he's wallpaper and plenty more times they likely forget him without meaning to. The trick COULD'VE helped.. but it failing was a reminder it was just a distraction from the fact his parent's aren't a family anymore, just two people who share a kid, loving him and caring about each other.. but what little bit of what he had before the divorce is just gone.

Brian Huskey's voice as he gives the monologue I used for this episode's quote is just heartbreaking.. you can feel the kid just.. relaizing he can't just run away from it. It's just.. how things are. HIs sad revelation of this just hits, Louise's "Oh boy", and Rudy sounds on the verge of tears.. we've seen him mad, we've seen him kinda sad.. but never like this. Just a child realizing things won't be the same and he has nothing to do but go back to it.

Thankfully as bob and linda mindly panic after realizing "oh god this child just ran and his parents don't know oh god", Louise knows what her best friends need and offers to walk him back. not only is the moment shiptastic.. it's sweet. Louise gets Rudy is having a hard time with all of this and needs some support, needs someone his own age there to talk with and to help deflect attention. And to punch out anyone on the way who tries to hurt them with brass knuckles, which naturally linda gave her as santa. After all he IS from the streets. It provides a pretty morose episode an utterly sweet ending as the two walk back, Bob couldn't be prouder, and Rudy.. for now at least.. isn't alone among his own family anymore. He may never have what he had back.. but he's gained someone pretty good along the way.

13. Watching and Dreaming (The Owl House, Season 3 Episode 3, Series Finale)

"Eda, King, Thank you for Everything" "Right Back atcha kiddo" "Weirdos?" "Weirdos"

The Owl house was the best show of the 2020's and while it had some stiff compettion this year, it still hasn't been surpassed. It was hilarious, had a wonderfully built messed up world with lots of thought, deep character arcs, and was sadly cut short way too soon, but will never leave the hearts of those of us who loved it.

So thankfully they stuck the landing, as Watching and Dreaming was a worthy conclusion to the series. After the decent but easily weakest of the three season 3 specials "For the Future", Watching and Dreaming is a nicely packed finale that wraps up the series wonderfully and while it leaves me wanting only MORE, MORE DAMN YOU MORE, as the series always had, it's a good note to end on while Dana gets the hell out of mouseton for a while.

It was also the last episode of a show I covered as it came out, with an attempt to do so with legend of vox machina adding way too much to my work load this year to really work out, and as a finale to that.. it was just as welcome.

Watching and Dreaming spends it's first third on the Collector, and while there is a bit of disconnect between what he puts our heroes through and where he left off, with Luz once again hving her anxieties reinforced via a horrifying puppet show, the show quickly recovers as the big three are reunited after two long episodes and several long months in and out of universe: Luz has her other mom and little brother back, Eda has her kids back and King has her family back. We also get a quick show of just how far they've come since the pilot as each one easily bodies the collector's games... and leaves him wondering why they won't play fair, why this isn't working. It takes three people who had to learn their lessons the hard way through tears, isolation and learning their life was a lie, to teach the boy god empathy and unveil that at his heart.. he's just a kdi who REALLY didn't know what he was doing was awful.

Unfortunately just as the collector learns friendship, belos POSSESS THE TITAN'S CORPSE ITSELF and plans to do .. something.. genocidey and after an attempt to just forgive him fails, the only thing our heros have is each other, with Luz's friends aka our other heroes busy saving allt he puppets with their new starry pjamaed pal.

Luz gets a last minute somewhat asspully upgrade, but it's all three together that defeats belos. It's an epic finale but one that nicely focuses on who Dana intended as the core of the series: a child who found her place in another world and learned responsibility and to forgive herself, a witch who learned to forigve and let others in, and a titan who learned empathy, all kicking that blobs ass. And then curb stomping it. It's a moving, fast paced, excellently animated finale with a fun time skip epilogue to tie it all together. Owl House may be gone... but it'll never be forgotten.

12. Army of the Doomstar (Metalocalypse, Finale Movie)

"I am a wheel in the gear of the Klok. I feel not my mortality".

The other adult swim finale movie this year and the one that had the harder road. While Venture Bros got it's movie offer at the same time as cancelation, it took Brendon Small a decade, a whole ass album designed to be as close to a finale as he could get without a lisence and a LOT of campaning to finish his story to get here. Metalocalypse ended just as the final verse of blood, metal and stupidity was about to be written, and it was thanks to Small and the Fans themselves that we finally got it with this movie.

Army wraps up 4 seasons and another movie, a movie I dearly loved when it came out and still do, with an epic. It's darker in tone as the metalocalypse that begun at the start of the series is almost here and Nathan Explosion has a full on existential crisis trying to write the song that will save the world, having no idea how and not helped by his disasterous attempted propsoal to abigail while on a lot of wine and xanax (Props to small for ending a pretty disliked subplot exactly the way it shoudl without just.. tossing it out for time or some shit AND making it tie perfectly into the plot). The films dives into the overexpecations we put on creatives to MAKE US MORE DAMMIT, and how hard that actually is.. but also how fans.. are something to treasure and not spit in their face as our heroes have the whole series, seeing them more as parasites than people.

It maintains the series ballance of having an epic story.. but not sugarcoating that these guys are fucking morons with Nathan charging into a funeral on xanax and telling everyone, Pickels having ot literally be everyone's mom, and Pickles ordering a last meal fo rnathan of cool ranch diritos and choclate milk. The shows as goofy as ever, but adds a heart that's been only glimpsed on occasion as our heroes are allergic to feelings, as our heroes must save the world. We also get some kickass metal music as always, with SOS being a standout, giving us one last awesome dethklok performance and song as our heroes rally the world to show them their not alone.. and they never were. An epic, hilarious, and well done film that manages to cover all the bases it needs to and wrap everything up in 96 minutes. Pretty brutal.

11. The World Vs Scott Pilgrim (Scott Pilgrim Takes off Episode 6, Series Finale)

"Hey, because I'll have a lot of trouble saying it later, let me say it now: I love you, Scott. And I run away from the thing that I love. But what I've done in the past doesn't have to define me. Help me keep remembering that, okay?"

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was a thrilling watch but there was one worry I had as it went.. sticking the landing. It set up a compelling mystery, to the point I genuinely wasn't sure who would kidnap scott as while the twins DID have to show up and were likely involved.. it just didn't fit that it was them. It being their robot who being a robot has never eaten anything, thus never eaten meat and would have none of the bilogicial weaknesses of a human, was brilliant as it is hilarious bonkers.

Who sent the robot.. was even better as it turned out to be Scott himself, a twist that told me everything was going to be alright. Specifically this is a scott who lived what this story would've been: Scott beats the exes, gets the girl, and they have a happy relationship and then marriage for 15 years, having become their best selves. The thing the series challenges though .. is if they can STAY better versions of themselves. It's something the other versions didn't really WANT to poke at because it makes the ending less happy: if they don't end up together, what's the point of all this. Yet.. relatoinships break up. Hope Larson, the real life inspriation for Ramona, divorced Brian Lee O Malley. The relationship COULD fail and where would that leave them.

As it turns out.. not great as Ramona bailed when it got hard while being vauge as usual, and Scott spiraled hard into his worst habits, moving in with wallace, again, and rather than figure out where he wen twrong.. wanted to hit undo on what he felt was a sunk cost, a relationship he put his heart into only for it to seemingly fail, even if he still had a chance to save it. Hence the brilliant and only not making this list because this year was paccckkked with good episodes, 2 Scott 2 Pilgrim before this. It also helps the takes off scott spedrun his charater development as future him is everything Scott tries to ignore about himself, his laziness, selfishness, short sightentess and very stupid brain, as a person he really can't ignore because that person kidnapped him because he took a joke Wallace made seriously.

So Scott naturally motors with the help of Future Wallace and Older Ramona, who was indeed the sleep paralysis demon and like her ex husband really sucks at plans, but gives Scott a lift home. So.. everything good? Ramona Grew, Scott Grew, Scott acknowlegeds he never should've dated a literal teenager... we goo dright? Right?

Thing is as this episode reveals midway through... Older Scott REALLY didn't want his past self to take the gamble that he could do it the right way and instead of giving himself tips.. gave himself anti kissing nanites so he and ramona can't kiss, the two naturally thinking it's the exes. We get a great opening here as scott confronts each of them, having only kinda witnessed their changes.. and most don't care. Even Gideon's moved on to Julie, his perfect match and a pariing I can't belivie I love and fits perfectly: their both the worst, and together their awful. Brilliant.

The two seemingly don't solve things.. but thankfully Old Scott is more than willing to show his hand.. as even older scott. Even Older Scott is terrifying, taking some of Scott's good traits.. and making them into something nightmarish. After his failure to change the future, not considering that

Instead looses his mind, training himself in video games and the martial arts for 10 years, all to counter everything his friends and the exes can do... all so he can KILL EVERY LAST ONE. Scott's worst nightmare across all realities has come to past, he's an evil ex.. and the evilest ex of all. Well in terms of power and madness, Gideon still put a bunch of women in jars because they broke up with him who Matt hopefully let out in this timeline.

We get a great fight as the utterly jacked, utterly terrifying even older scott, who nicely resembles evil ryu from street fighter and has pixel effects ala movie!gideon, cleans house, with Ramona wondering if she should just.. leave all this. It's only realizing that's literally all she does that gets her to realize she want sto fight for this, even if it ends poorly, and Scott, already all in, helps her.

Ultimately it's not the duo who win their future this time.. but Ramona's own future, what could be, even older ramona, saving her past self via fusion, a super mode (Just like Sonic 2.. or 3.. or dragon ball.), and some words of encouragment, giving EOS another chance and Scott the beautiful words above.

It's a powerful message and one that's real: it's hard to change.. but it's even harder to get change to stick. You just have to keep remembering it.. and keep trying. No matter how bad things seem.. you can make it better.

This is all helped by the beautiful ending, a pixel version of god only knows as everyone, exes now included, gets to live their best life and we last see Ramona as she dons what we finally find to be her natural hair color, blond (with some highlights because, hey, it looks badass), ready to face the future)... and the best worst couple hyping a sequel that will never happen, but frankly it'd be werider if they didn't, A truly spectacular finale to what may be the best version of this story.

#scott pilgrim takes off #lackadaisy #atlas and the stars #metalocalypse #the venture bros #the owl house #bobs burgers #miraculous ladybug #animation #2023 #best of 2023

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popculturebuffet · 3 months

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The Kablammiest Retrospective Finale: Odds and Ends (Comission for Cory Bryant)

The end is nigh all you happy people. After several months, and 4 aricles covering every season it's time to say Goodnight to KaBlam. I enjoyed this retrospective.. almost no one read it, but it had me exploring a show I only occasionally thought about and see the wonders it had to offer. I truly enjoyed this show

So in making my way out I got Cory to extend the retrosepctive as when it was comissioned I hadn't realized there's a bunch of neat extras on the fringes of KaBlam history: Pilots, shorts not aired on the show, a spinoff attempt, all sorts of intresting pieces of media I wanted to dive into. If I was going to do this I wanted it to be complete and I thank Cory dearly for both this retrospective and allowing me to give it a proper sendoff.

So today's final entry is a bit diffrent: every little KaBlam loose end I could find, reviewed as they go, and one final kablammy awards to cap it all off. So put your heiner in the recliner one last time as we take a look at everything that coudln't be cartoon crammed into the series proper.

We start with one of the last KaBlam things, the Henry and June Show. Nick had this weird thing where they really didn't care about KaBlam as a whole by the end.. but DID really like Action League Now! and Henry and June. The former got a test with an exclusive short we'll talk about in a bit and the latter got a pilot for a spinoff that, like the show itself, Mark Marek thankfully put up on his webstie.. if relutcantly. Marek really wasn't a fan of this and it didn't go to series, with the characters moving on to other things post kablam we'll get to soon enough.

I get why this pilot happened: The Henry and June Shorts were the longest out of the kablam segments as the wraparound, taking up a decent chunk of each episode, had an established supporting cast and had potetial. Not only that there was the potteial to expand on the two's day to day lives, which we only saw glimpses of. The potetial was there.

It was not reached though. The first segment suffers from feeling like reheatd KaBlam leftovers: The duo's first show goes offf the rails due to the Oleson Twins not coperating, Stockadle screwing up and mr foot not being back with henry's breath mints so he accidently kills a hamster/ There's some good bits: I love how they introduce their annimal trainer as "that guy with all the animals", that the olseon twins won't come out because of how their drawn and our duo having a fight scene early on due to Henry embezzling both their paychecks to buy a sports car that goes through the WWF and actual genie al roker's sets. I also like that for whatever reason they got the REO Speedwagon song "Roll with the Changes" which I didn't know by name but did recognize by ear. It's just fun to hear it as Mr Foot gets into an OJ Simpson style high speed chase that ends up saving the show. It has good bits.. but it also feels like iv'e seen "henry and june's show go's off the rails" in way more intresting ways like their parents getting into a fist fight or mr stockdale having a war flashback. I do get this is the pilot, trying to set the tone.. but it dosen't work when you've already seen this.

The second half has the two prepared to bask in their fame.. only to find no one watched the show. I do like finding out June has other friends, but otherwise the first half of this short is pretty boring. it's also not helped by a very unwanted return. For somehow, Ryan returned.

Yes Ryan the Annoying fanboy is alive and just as annoying and one note as last time. And the fact he's arround twice means for the final time this retrospecitve, and the SECOND time in so many months... i'm adding one to the wall.

I swear this thing just gets bigger every time. And I"m not padding it: I geninely hate the fuckers added and if the hate goes down, they will be dropped. I only had TWO in mind.. then I remembered "Didn't let his son rescue him from a torando to teach him a shitty lesson" and "Cut his ex-girlfriend's breaks and acts like their still together".

Anyways Ryan is still the worst though thankfully isn't around a ton. I also think he might of debuted here first as this aired during Kablam's final season. Either way he sucks and we go on to the two going to a performing arts academy and getting sick of it because they hype them up too much.. but the two classes don't really show it? Another wannabe star kicks june during dance class (leading to a funny piano gag) and Henry's trainer gives up on him doing reps. The only really funny bit is what gets them to leave.. after admitting the issues the entire school, including mary kate and ashley, break into a motivational song.. and our heroes slink away to obscurity and sick ryan on the school. It's just bland: parodying fame wasn't fresh in 1999. Underated film though, check it out. It just feels like two weaker kablam wraparounds and while I wish Mark Marek would make another full show, I can understand why he was glad this didn't get picked up.

The rest of wha ti found for the duo is various other apperances. First is something I found while writing this article, a short comic done for nick magazine where the two parody various comics. It's short, breezy fun and can be found here if your intrested.

The rest is a variety of hosting gigs: they hosted a summer marathon where June assumed a bunch of small babies ate sausage when talking about the rugrats, a halloween marathoon, and upick friday, a segment where voters called in to get the cartoons they wanted I vaguely remember. Not bad stuff, just not meant to be watched in one go. There's also 101% whizbang a cartoon block they hosted which there were only a few segments of floating around. I watched em all, but the lost media wiki clocked a handful that simply dont' exist and I may cover if they ever surface. I did what I could.

Finally we have Nicktoon News, where the two reported on various news stories. It's.. weird to here Henry and June talk abotu the fairly odd parents or anyone talk about Butch Hartman without calling him some form of asshole. Simplier times. Also Henry wants to bea new pokemon. Keep at it henroid, i'm sure you'll be in the next game. you just gotta belivie. Overall this pile was intresting stuff you can find on youtube.. but not really entertaining nowadays. Fun for one look, neve ragain.

Next up we have the Sniz and Fondue Pilot, Psyched for Snuppa. Why is Snuppa named? Well it could be because he's played by Meatloaf. Yes... Meatloaf. He will do anything for love... but he won't play a cat. A ferret's okay though. I also like his outfit and wish it hadn't been changed to a more generic one. I love the high collars on him and sniz.

This one's also notable for being directed by John R Dilworth of COurage the Cowardly Dog Fame, who didn't direct any following episodes because that masterpiece got picked up and who Brandon was apparently unsastisfed with his work anyway.

Psyched For Snuppa is a lot of fun, having our three protaganists get into shenanigans after Bianca calls them mid seance to summon Jimmi Hendrix to help her with two hilaroius brats sh'es babysitting. The episode is really just our main duo and ocasoinally snuppa getting into weird shenanigans with two children. It works really well, ti's charming and dilworth's expertise at timing and facial expression relaly elevate this one. it's one of the best sniz and fondue shorts and a really excellent pilot despite the two being on the side.

Now we've come to Action League NOW! which has two pilots that aired on all that that were never resued and a short for a one off special that never aired on kablam but I think aired in the spinoff.

First up are the pilots and they.. aren't great. one has the gang being stalked by the mayor with a train which isn't as funny as it sounds and the other has them stuck in the fridge. Both good concpets btu the comedic timing and slapstick just aren't there yet. Which isn't suprising: I wasn't the biggest fan of action league now season 1 and it took the series till season 2 to really hit it's stride.

In the Whine of Fire is a decent extra sized episode. Meltman flees during a case and to get his rep back agrees to guard pop star blandee, while the league looks out for him as the Mayor has been targeting pop stars with a giant robot to promote his album. And I swear to god if the Mayor's va Jim Krenn ever reads this, please give me that album. Or at least a track. I'd love to hear the pisstake that would be the mayor singing.. or rapping. Oh god... have him rap. Pleassseee.

At any rate Meltman naturally chickens out and is pissed after the league beats the robot as he thinks they were trying to make hi mlook good, and ends up in a realtionship with blandee, not happy that she thinks he's a hero and feels wrong for deciving her. It's honestly some of the most sympathetic we've seen him: he still sucks, but he dosen't take credit for something he didn't do on purpose and dosen't want ot hurt her.

It all climaxes at a concert, with another giant robot, meltman bein ga hero and blandee being crushed so he can avoid concsequences. It's.. okay. Not the best they've done, but it has the mayor in a giant robot and a hilaroius parody of late 90's pop stars, not the best i've seen but still spot on enough for this to be decent.

We Are the Shrimpskins is a weird one. It was done by Life With Loopy creator Stephan Holman as one of Nick's many intertitle shorts, ala The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Part of the contract included an animated short, the network wanted more, and thus Life with Loopy became the series but since i'ts from the same creator, I figured this one should be included. Holman and his company would go on to create the short lived WB series phantom investgators in the same style as loopy, and is something I hope to cover someday but like some of the series that broke out it's too long at 13 episodes to justify putting in here.

As for We Are the Shrimpskins it's delightful absurdity as two weird beings , the titluar shrimpskins, enter a contest at a local sofa store to win a weekend with the weirdest people in the world. What follows is chainsaws, sofas and madness, and it's great ending with the revelation they are the wierdest.. and them just boarding up the door at the people who did one. This short is silly, delightfully fun, and worth a look if you like Holman's other work or just like wacky nonsense in general. Do I completely get it? Not really and i'm 40% wacky nonsense. But it's fun nonetheless

The Life with Loopy Birthday Galabration is something I almost didn't include: it's a repackage of several Life with Loopy Shorts, along with one that hadn't aired yet, Send in the Clones It's not bad and a good collection if you want to try the shorts. It's clear the series was popular and i'm shocked it didn't get a full series order at some point or at least had the shorts repackaged ala action league now!

That said the galabration is fun, with members of the action league there along with Prometheus.. whose dating Brad Pitt. Which is awesome> Good for you man, both of you. Sadly didn't last but hey. There's also A LOT of celebrity gags from Patrick Stewart being loopy's mentor, to Henry creepily hitting on Kate WInslet, to Ben Franklin dating Alyssa milayno. The man can still get it.

The wraparound is animated by Mark Marek, so we get to see some characters in the Henry and June style, including loopy and family themselves as you can see, though theys till neatly mimick the cardboard cutout style. I myself coudln't cut it, but respect to meshing the two styles.

The wraparounds decent enough, the short package is some of the best of the series and overall the special's worth a look and like I said a good place to start if this series peaks your intrest. I really cannot recommend these shorts enough.

Like Sniz and Fondue I was so happy to see the off beats again. Starting off we have three shorts that aired between shows that never made it to KaBlam! All this talk about intertitle shorts make me want to review the adventures of pete and pete.

The first has August solo as he tries to impress the populars by saying his dog can talk.. which of course september can but the punchline is great as he says bow.. because he wants them all to bow to him. Nice and simple. The second has the Populars pull "your shoes untied" and it only work on Rapunzil. Finally we have The Twig, the weakest of the three but still not bad as Betty Anne tries to save a twig. The ending is great though August and September play fetch... and naturally August is the one fetching.

The main event though is naturally

Fun Fact I found out.. despite seeing this as a kid, this was lost media for a while> Thankfully like most of kablam's content it hasn't been for some time, and can be found on youtube as can almost all of this. I'll point out the exception later. Why Nick hasn't put this up on paramount I dont' know.. then again they haven't put Catscratch ont here and took YEARS to put el tigre on there so

The Valentine's Special is fun, and while I was mildly worried if the show could keep it's nice mellow energy for so long it does, resluting in what's both easily the best Off-Beats cartoon and one of the best things related to KaBlam. It's a shame Willems didn't want to tkae this to series or make more specails, but I can respect he had other things he wanted to do.

The Special is great though as a finale, ending these shorts on a high as the kids deal with valentine's shenanigans: Tommy falls in love with a popular, Beth, the one with frizzy hair, and they go to hilaroius lengths to keep it secret like him calling her.. while disguised or pretending to be a statue while she visits at night while the rest of the populars, still glued to her hip, are all there asleep. IT's a lot of fun stuff.

It's also a lot of painful stuff as while the shorts themselves had a bit of pathos, this specail really digs into it, something I feared would happened but figured wouldn't.. and was proven wrong. When planning to reveal their relationship at the valentine's dance.. Beth backs out at the last second and Tommy learns the hard lesson talking to her that you have to find someone who cares about you more than their status or themself. She likes him.. but not enough to actually risk anything or be seen with him. It's a sad ending.. but it's realistic, has a ncie punch to it, and still ends on the note of Tommy realizing that having friends is still good. Looped in is Repunzil planning to ask out Tommy , not knowing he's in a relationship and him taking the cowards way out of avoiding her. Betty Anne has to be the one to tell her (having found out earlier). That said we get my faviorite gag of the special, Tommy holding up a sign that says i'm not tommy and it working. Stupid? Yes. Glorious? Also yes. It works on character as I do buy Repunzil would take the sign that literally and Tommy knows this> I also like that they don't go for the obvious ending of the two ending up together: tommy isn't intrested even when he's publicly humiliated, but accepts her as a friend and she accepts that. Even after finding out he's in a relationship earlier on, she rebounds fine and still goes to the dance.

Betty Anne Bongo also gets a subplot and it's eh: She claims to be over valentine's and only need friends, changes her toon when she meets groovy gru's nephew and passes out in front of the guy falining. It's funny, from her growling he's mine in the same voice tommy uses when yelling when Repunzil compliments him to her passing out, but it's something i've seen a lot that the off beats dosen't spin well.

We then have August. August's plot is.. there. It feels like they came up with everyone elses plots and then scrambled to include august, who does factor into things, he asks out Tina the headpopular and his rejection makes Beth nervous enough to back out of accepting Tommy' s invitation to dance, but it's just kinda .. eh. He breaks from his reliance on tech to try being natural then prances around in his underwear. It just kinda happens.

I saved the best for last though as September gets a dedicated plot and easily the biggest one of the special outside of the main plot with Tommy: September belays his tragic backstory to Tommmy, how he once dated a cat named febuary, whose design I love as do her real cat meow. She disappeared, he was left broken but enourages Tommy to move on. He also is super depressed when DJing due to the memory, which would be the best depressed valentine's dj gag ever, but sadly parks and rec came along. It's not BAD but it's no Chris Trager playing sad monk durges before looking longingly at jerry

God I miss this show. The Off Beats Valentine's day is a can't miss and was easily the best of the stuff I watched for this odds and ends, and given Psyched for Snuppa was pretty dang good, that does say something. but this peanuts style holiday special just can't be beat in charm or technique.

So now we've come to the suprising shorts, three of which had other shorts that simply never made KaBlam.. and the first is the one I dreaded the most, to the point I saved it till towards the end. I wasn't a big fan of the louie and louie show, finding it overly cruel and depressing.

So i'm shocked that the second short.. works better. our main duo are still neglected pets but they dont' seem to be as miserable, and the anatagonist,s instead of thier terrible owners are the cat and dog that get more attention and act like thugs. It's still not amazing, but it has good gags, a nice payoff and the bad guys actually pay for being dickheads this go round. Not a bad short all things considered. Still don't think there was enough for a series and i'm glad they went and made Teacher's Pet instead, but far better than I expected and it deserves credit for that.

Patchead had three more shorts outside of KaBlam. Why they didn't use them, I have no idea. They needed to fill the space and it woudl've been anothe rrecurring segment. Whatever the case, we got three more to look at and given I liked the first two, I was excited for this The first Hook Line and Sinker is one of two shorts overall that dosen't have Nick Offerman

Thankfully it's not as dire as it seems, as the short's still good. Patchead has a junk fishign contest with a rich kid. It's not as good as the gold one, and honestly neither was the racing one, but it's still some good fun and a nice change of pace. While I love nick offerman playing a large ham in a work this weird and this early in his career, it's not bad to break from it.

That said it was a DELIGHT to have him back for the next one where Patchead is a porkchop delivery boy, but no one wants them they want possum pops, which Offerman cheerfully delivers in a sleeveless white shirt in his run down shack

Eventually though Patchead is able to use the porkchops to stop a wave of bbq sauce and the town embraces the porkchops now with more flavor. It's a fun short and a nice break from the compettition stuff in the first three shorts, and look i'll take Nick Offerman looking exactly like lenny while promoting eating possum any day. The guy got what the shorts were going for and went for it. One of the best comedic actors out there.

Almost forgot the last one.. which has a genie emerge from a mudflap and try ot kill people. You'd think it'd be more intresting.

Cards on the table: our final shorts today are the reason why I did this. Finding out there was more of what was easily one of my faviorite surprising short was too tempting not to look into. I already had built up a decent pile of possible stuff to cover, but this... this was the goat. And the shorts.. were decent. Their not bad , their simply only a minute or two: they still have the utterly unique abstract art style and the down to earth tone that plays off, but the KaBlam short had more room to breathe. I still highly recommend watching these three as their still intresting: Alice recounts getting some new boots after deciding people are their shoes

Has her cat die, something that was entirely hard to stomach as I lost my cat Stewie last year, and a trip to the planterium where a plan for the class to all wear glow in the dark goes sideways thanks to Alice's horrible best friend suki, who shit talks another girl in alice's name and previously said she didn't like cats to her best friend's cat dying

Not bad just not a lot to talk about as their so short.

Overall i'm glad I went to look into these extras: it was an intresting ride: it was also a lot of "this was pretty good" i'll admit but outside of the henry and june show and the action league now pilots, there really wasn't anything BAD and even then both are intresting. The H and J show has some good bits and it's neat to see how Action League Now evolved into what it became. It was nice to have one last lap with this property. While this has been far from my most successful project, it's one of my faviorites: it got me to really think about it and I wouldn't be oppsoed to doing another retrospective for cory down the line.

For now though there's one FINAL piece of buisness:

It's the FINAL Kablammy Awards! For this one i'm picking out the best shorts PERIOD from each recurring series and the best of the MANY startling shorts. Also to be fair to today's batch a few awards, if not nearly as many as usual since it's a small pile of shorts and all

Best Patchead Segment Post KaBlam: The Porkchop one. Look it was fine to experiment without Nick Offerman.... but his hammy southern performance adds a lot to the charm of these segments.

Best Girl WIth Her HEad Falling Off: The Boots. I mean again I relate to a cat death... "Sigh", but I like the concept of an inner name and her buying some kickin boots nicely. That feeling of a kid of wanting something bad your parents just hate.

Best Off Beats Pilot: My Dog Can Talk. It's simple, hilaroius and sets up the dynamic of the show beautifully.

Best Overall: The Off-Beats Valentine's Day. A full 22 minutes of what's probably tied for my faviorite KaBlam Segment with Life with Loopy (Though Sniz and Fondue is close). What's not to love?

So with that our grand finale.. the best of the best. First up the best episodes from each season. It' ssomething I should've done all along but decided to save for this finale.

Season 1: What the Astronauts Drink. This ep mostly gets it on novelty, as it's I belivie the only ep where the various segments and the wraparound all have the same theme.. SPACCCCEEEEEE. But for these consicancy is also a factor: some of the best segments can have mediocre episodes. But the segements here are all classics: The mayor trying to launch the action league's dog into space to be a dick, Loopy lassoing the moon, Sniz getting kidnapped by aliens, and the only short not themed around the space stuff, Anemoia and Iodine, which charmed me so much Anemoia is in the page image for this artcle. It's a solid episode with a lot of fun segments and a nice themeing no other episode matches.

Season 2: This one has a weak wraparound, i'll admit, the 3d stuff being mildly amusing at best.. but it clicnches the win with it's segments. We have Flesh getting naked and ruining diplomacy, Bob not getting how chairs work (One of the few pre season 4 p an db segments I love), the delightful bat infested upside down loopy and the iconic off beats where Tommy has lost his coat. All bangers, all make up for a weak wraparound.

Season 3: This one's.. okay. Season 3 had some great stuff.. but I found it wasn't very constient in it's episodes. So You'll Love OUr Selection wins. Granted the Mayor's football murder and Race Rabbi'ts debut are spectacular, but Loopy's whale adventure and whatever promethus and bob did aren't anything amazing. Not bad, but it really wins this award for the mr foot wraparound and the two good segments more than anything.

Season 4: Now With More Flava, which is more on par with what the astronauts drink: it dosen't have the neat gimmick but every segement is great: The wraparound about our heroes trying to stay relevant, while depressing in hindsight, is full of great gags and John Stamos. It also has two of the series best segments period, spoilers for coming up, which helps boost it's rating.

Finally we have the best. I picked these mostly from my best episodes, but there's at least one outside it that got in as I changed my mind between reviews. It happens. So without further ado the best of the best KaBlam has to offer and if your this late in and STILL haven't tried the show, these are the shorts to sell you on it.

Henry and June's Best Segment: Won't Stick to Most Dental Work, the Studio Tour is one of their most inspired, every joke lands, and the ending with the off beats stunt show is my kind of bonkers in the conkers. It has the wraprounds meta flava while applying it to something rediculous and fun and it works oh so well. Great theme park satire, great jokes, simply the best.

Best Sniz and Fondue: Stuntbike Sniz. The Hose one did have a decent shot... but Stuntbike Sniz is just the most consitantly good, has a lot of great jokes and a stuntacular and injurrrifc finale.

Action League NOW!: Grief for the Chief the concept of a bunch of flashbacks where they keep ruining his life with thier stupidity despite TRYING to do something nice for a change, his rage typhoon at the end.. it's perfect. I shoudl've picked this one for the season 4 list and it's winning now.

Best Prometheus and Bob: Tape One. A wonderful origin story that shows whY Bob and Prometheus stick with each other with lots of neat gags and reveals all wrapped into it. Probably shoudl've eaten that monkey tho.

Best LIfe with Loopy: This one was hard, not helped by the Galabration reminding me how good the ballon one was. It was down to that one, the Trouble with Inflation or my faviorite of season 4, Rock N Roll Loopy. It was a REALLY tough choice... but I'm going with The Trouble with Inflaction, which lost it's season 1 thing.. but in hindsight.. is really the most represnetive of the series. It has a great premise in Loopy simply wanting to stop the bills from stressing her dad, a real perfect kid dilemma not getting WHY bills piss him off so much and blaming the stone faced mail man. To be fair the dude does come off like a dick, but at the end of the day dick or not he's only doing his job and Loopy's solution, sending her dad a letter to help and his smile.. it kills me. It has the series heart, insanity and humor all in one place. Had to pick this one.

The Off-Beats: The Valentine's Special. Tommy's Song was close.. but it's hard for the regular shorts to beat a whole, expertly crafted episode that expands the show wonderfully.

Startling Shorts: The Girl With Her Head Coming Off. The animation style is truly unique and the story relatable and well done. Truly wish we had more.

So with that we say adeu to KaBlam! This project has been a lot of fun, a lot of work, and I want to thank anyo f you who read it, thank cory for pitching it and thank the creators of these wondreful cartoons. There was truly nothing like this... there may of been oh yeah cartoons and what a cartoon after it.. but there was never anything quite like this wonderful exploration of animation, creativity and nonsense. See ya when I see ya

#kablam #henry and june #action league now #sniz and fondue #life with loopy #patchhead #nickelodeon #90's #2000s #cartoons #animation

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