I enjoy how every Glass Animals song sounds like "ouhhhhhh blue sky lemonade like an Arnold palmer I wish u and I were calmer drown the memory of youuu in goji berry water *the strangest noises you've ever heard* hot tub in a swimming pool mind full of Scooby-Dooby ghouls you were always too cool for school hot cheetos and cotton candy juuls *water dripping sound effects*" and it slaps mega juicy balls every time
I find it so refreshing that we are in this rare stage in western animation where disney is actually not monopolizing all the attention. If anything, 2022 has been one of their worse years yet in the animation department. Everything they have done has been completely eclipsed by other studios for once. Their Pinocchio "movie" was just obliterated by Guillermo del Toro's version. Strange World was completely forgotten because of poor marketing choices, allowing Dreamworks to come back with the Bad Guys and Puss in Boots, the first being very good and the second absolutely excellent (I'm being serious, this movie is SO MUCH MORE than a simple Shrek spin-off).
TMNT even got its time to shine with probably the best 2D animated film this year (in a technical aspect at least), rekindling an interest for the entire franchise (with another TMNT movie by Seth Rogen in production!!)
The Sea Beast was amazing. Wendell & Wild was a masterclass. 2022 has just been excellent throughout, and it's Disney that happens to be the weakest at the moment. Even the Minions 2 got more attention than most things that came out on Disney + Animation this year (not saying that the movie was great or anything, but it's saying a lot)
And when we look at the next Pixar movie coming out next year, the hype pales in comparison to the Mario movie, and let's not even TALK about Across the Spiderverse......everybody knows it's going to snatch everyone's wig, and all the awards under the sun to match it.
So yeah, western animation gets to breathe a little, and it feels amazing.
An interesting “side effect” of the canonization of the “classic era” meaning “younger era” is that the classic era now reads as “cute fun times” before the core cast became teenagers/tweens and things got super, super complicated.
Because the characters are “younger,” there’s an air of “little rascal innocence” to everything they do now. The new releases like Mania and Superstars now feel like little throwbacks to the young heroes just learning how to work together and make a difference in the world.
Ever heard of the five-toed worm lizard (Bipes biporus)? This burrowing critter isn’t a snake: It’s a member of a group called amphisbaenians, which include mostly legless reptiles. Growing about 8.3 in (21.1 cm) long, this species is an ectotherm, which means its body temperature depends on its immediate environment. Using its tiny clawed digits to dig underground, it tends to hang out closer to the surface during the early hours of the day, then burrows deeper below the Earth as the Sun peaks. It can be found in Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula.