Archive for July, 2013

Tumblr Tuesday – 07/23/13

So hopefully, if I can keep it up, I’ll be reposting the various tumblr posts I write during the week here every Tuesday. Because alliteration.

— Cartoon scheduling is pretty screwed up:

http://totalmediabridge.tumblr.com/post/54098763032/what-the-hell-is-up-with-cartoon-scheduling

— But the music is so much better than years past: 

http://totalmediabridge.tumblr.com/post/54523028176/howd-the-music-in-cartoons-improved-considerably

— And I wrote a few choice words about the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman verdict:

http://totalmediabridge.tumblr.com/post/55441890531/what-if-george-zimmerman-minded-his-own-business

http://totalmediabridge.tumblr.com/post/55616092510/martin-vs-marley

http://totalmediabridge.tumblr.com/post/55875310904/one-last-travyon-martin-posting

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CHILDHOOD REVISTED – Gargoyles “The Thrill of the Hunt/Temptation”

Gargoyles screenshot

The Gargoyles clan is stuck in a brand new world with absolutely no idea what’s out there. After the incredibly entertaining “Awakening” movie, Gargoyles slows down a bit to set up its characters and situations, slowly developing plot points that most certainly will be dealt with in the future. Unfortunately, these two episodes aren’t exactly the best way to handle putting these pieces into place. While “Temptation” is a much stronger episode than “The Thrill of the Hunt,” they both were a bit more contrived than they should have been. Like “Awakening,” Gargoyles has trouble with its “plans behind the plans”. While its best to ignore how these complex plans could have possibly been set up, it’s hard not to at least give a little thought to them and realize that they don’t really make a lot of sense.

“The Thrill of the Hunt” and “Temptation” are focused on the Gargoyles trying to find people they can relate to, people that can understand their plight – “kindred spirits,” as they refer to it. Using Brooklyn and Lexington as the source for these types of searches is a great decision, since they (along with Broadway) are the ones bold enough to explore the city on their own. Hudson is content with TV watching. Goliath has Elisa to guide her. And let’s not be coy – Lex, Brooklyn, and Broadway are the closest that kids probably can relate to, since their exploration of a world they don’t quite understand definitely reflects any young child’s life of growing up in a world they have yet to fully understand themselves. But it’s also fun to watch them get acquainted so easily to what they see around them, and, at the same time, not understand exactly what they’re getting acquainted with.

In “The Thrill of the Hunt,” for example, Lexington, Broadway, and Brooklyn (for now on, I’m going to refer to them as the G3) fly to Madison Square Garden to watch the live appearance of the actors from the show “The Pack,” which looks kinda like a GI Joe knock-off – five rough-and-tumble rogues fighting robots and junk. “The Thrill” has an odd beginning, where Hudson tries to change the channel when the show is on, but can’t, since it looks like its on every channel (this, remarkably, is important). The G3 is impressed by the show since it bills its characters as outsiders and warriors, and Lex in particular makes the bold move to introduce himself to the team, in an attempt to find said kindred spirits, since they are unaware of the artifice of TV.

Here’s where things kinda fall apart. In the interim, we see the Pack backstage, and we discover that they are actual warriors, albeit of the sadistic kind. They love their fame, fortune, and admiration, but they want blood as well. This is somewhat hard to swallow – the actors of a TV show actually want to kill people? Part of the problem is that we don’t know their history or how they even got to the point of being actors, and how no one seems to notice or care. So someone sends them pictures of the gargoyles, and they get a bit frothy at the mouth, desiring to hunt and kill them. So when Lex approaches them, they play along with the kindred spirits BS and talk him to meeting Goliath.

Lex convinces Goliath to come and meet them as well (a bit of pre-emptive great writing when Lex mentions that, of course, he didn’t tell them about their stone transformations or living quarters, so good on the Gargoyles crew to avoid that piece of contrivance), but it falls into other pieces of contrivances – for instance, when the Pack traps Lex and Goliath on the set of their show, it’s revealed that its a giant, real deathtrap, with spikes and crushing walls and everything.  I feel like this meant to be a longer set piece, but at some point, the writers kinda realized how stupid it was – Goliath simply rips through the steel walls of the set and they escape. The Pack follows, and we’re onto a much better “cat-and-mouse” chase through the city.

Goliath and Lex are, at first, unable to handle the Pack, mainly because they don’t know their enemy or their surroundings. Plus, Lex in particular, is so enraged from the betrayal that he acts reckless, and Goliath has to rein him in. So they spend a bit of time running and getting blown up, and it’s a lot of fun until this really terrible part where these two kids and their parents see the fight, and they think its a movie, and then the two kids throw trash at the gargoyles and – well, it’s a very cringeworthy moment, but it does give Lex and Goliath the chance to escape and regroup. I wish that it was anything ELSE but those kids, but it is what it is, and it’s great that, right after, Lex and Goliath pick off the Pack one by one atop a building with stone gargoyles. In a location that best represents their natural element, the gargoyles are just not to be fucked with. With the Pack dispatched, they return home, and Lex apologizes, but Goliath admits that he was right – in this confusing world, they really do need to find something, someone, to relate to. They can’t stay up in the castle forever – Eliza reminds Goliath that Xanatos will be back. Goliath thinks he can take him again, but I do think deep down it is a concern for the gargoyle leader. Speaking of which, in the last two minutes, we see Xanatos and Owen discuss the MASTER PLAN behind all this – Xanatos created the Pack, trained them, send the photos, and locked the TV so that was the only show that would air. This is ridiculous. Any number of things could have gone wrong with this plan, and it approaches the “master criminal locked in glass prison has every single thing planned out” contrivance. I don’t know what the endgame is with this, but I hope they kinda brush this under the rug and move on.

“Temptation” is much more straight-forward, but it doesn’t start off too well. Or, rather, the setup for the main plot is just as contrived as “The Thrill.” The actual beginning is fine. The G3 are building their own motorcycle, and as silly as it seems, I like that Lexington develops a sense of technology and mechanics quickly. Although it’s not explicitly stated, a bit of time has passed – months, probably, implied by Elisa’s discussion with Goliath over Xanatos’ inevitable return – and it’s a subtle way of discovering that the gargoyles are particularly skilled at adaptation. With the motorcycle built, Brooklyn, ever the culture-lover, dons a helmet, sunglasses, and leather jacket (which he fits by folding his wings, and it looks really goddamn cool), and goes out joy-riding. He outruns the police and finds a motorcycle gang, and they at first find common ground over Brooklyn’s bike. But once Brooklyn takes off his helmet and reveals himself as a gargoyle, the gang immediately attacks him.

This is both great AND terrible. Lexington has his passion for technology. Broadway has his food. What does Brooklyn have? He loves dabbling into culture and its offerings, but with no one to share it with, it’s hollow and meaningless. In that way, I can see why Brooklyn was so quick to reveal himself. The brief bond over the motorcycle could have been stronger than the weirdness of his species, and Brooklyn mistakenly thought it was the case. What is terrible about this, though, is what so many writers do when a similar situation pops up in their TV shows – upon the reveal, the humans immediate resort to attacking. Every time I see this, I groan. There’s something suspect about this reaction. I would understand if they stood in surprise and confusion, and certainly if they ran away, but the leader shouting, “Get him!” and the gang members all just doing that… well, it’s really just inexplicable and stupid, but, again, it’s definitely a victim to writers’ contrivance, all set up really to reveal Demona and her rescue of him. Does this have a tvtrope.com name? Whatever it is, it needs to stop. (Also, and I may be reading way too much into this, but there’s a weird antagonism towards “young people” in this scene, especially if you look at their clothing, which is, eww. See, in the mid-90s, New York was really starting to clean itself up, but Gargoyles still seems to have mistaken that the city was still stuck in its 80s-like culture of danger, fear, and anger, which is fine for the show, but sometimes too much is too much.)

That parenthetical digression does lead to a strong couple of scenes where Demona, sensing Brooklyn’s moment of weakness, manipulates him by showing the worse side of humanity. Flying through the city, she shows him a robbery, a domestic dispute, and a murder. It’s bold, and props to Disney to allow that kind of visual depth to the moments, since it really works on Brooklyn. He’s really a lost kid, and Demona is the worse kind of mother, especially when you know how lost she must have been over the years without her clan. She both knows what she’s doing to Brooklyn AND is one hundred percent convinced of her outlook. It’s really great stuff, and it makes her one of the most compelling villains in recent history, up there along Mr. Freeze. She tells Brooklyn to get her Magus’ magic book, the Grimorum Arcanorum, and to lure Goliath to a certain place to “show him the truth,” and he does both.

Well, it turns out that “showing him the truth” really meant “cast a spell on Goliath to control his every move,” much to Brooklyn’s horror. Demona knows her former lover well – there was no way she was going to convince him to turn on humanity, so she opted to turn him into a husk. There’s no maniacal laughter here, no “YOU FOOLS! DID YOU REALLY EXPECT BLAH BLAH BLAH” cliched speeches. Demona truly believed this was the only way; at some point in her long, torturous life, she had embraced the monster that she must have been called all throughout history. Brooklyn doesn’t buy it, and there’s a pretty great action sequence between her, him, and Goliath. Brooklyn snags the pages from the Grimorum with that control spell and gets Goliath to turn on Demona. She escapes, but not after ripping a couple of suspect pages out from the book, while Brooklyn guides Goliath home and, with a bit of magic manipulation from Eliza, turns Goliath back to normal.

So the Gargoyles are 0-2 on the search for kindred spirits, not to mention the return of Xanatos and the specter of Demona gliding in the background (along with whatever the hell is going on with the Pack). Things aren’t going too well for the group, and things are looking to go from bad to worse. Any victory the group can get is a good one, but we’re definitely on the precipice of some dangerous territory. Hopefully we’re also past the arguably unnecessary contrivances that were needed to set up the direction of the show, and we can really get to the fallout of winged beasts in New York and the very, very dangerous people who know about them.

GRADE: “The Thrill of The Hunt” B-/”Temptation” B

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5 Recent-ish Shows You Need to Watch (or at Least Give Them a Chance)

Robot and Monster

1) Robot & Monster (available on iTunes)

Premise: Two best friends live together in a bizarrely askew world of Mechanicals (robots) and Organics (monsters).

Why it’s Off-Putting: Robot & Monster seemed like it was cooked up as a precursor to a pay-to-play kids MMO game. Choose your race! Design your character! Buy a bunch of shit! Be like the characters from this TV show! Also, with its blimps, quirkiness, and obsession with bacon, it gave off a way too strong “HEY INTERNET!” vibe.

Why it’s Brilliant: Underneath the quirk is a surprisingly smart and well thought-out show that deepens the characters and seeks to explain its quirks one episode at a time. Robot’s childhood is as sad as it is funny, tortured by his big brother Gart and aggressively ignored by his mother, both of whom make no attempt to hide their contempt for him (and his grandmother speaks in BINARY!). Monster is childlike in his innocence, but manages to maintain a certain amount of adorableness, mainly when his blind devotion and friendliness spreads to others. Weird moments and visuals are given context, doled out across several episodes, breathing life into events that seem like arbitrary design decisions. Robot and Monster’s TV is black and white, but they compete in a contest to get a color one, re-contextualizing black and white TV as the quirky norm. The show is filled with these small reveals.

But the best part is that Robot and Monster has perhaps one of the best secondary casts of animated cartoons in the past few years. Ogo is an inexplicable stalker of the titular characters, knowing more about them they know themselves, tracking their every move, and planting cameras all over their apartment, to a creepily hilarious degree. Mr. Wheelie, their landlord, hates them for no good reason. Punch Morley is a former polo-player turned security guard who’s as strong as he’s moronic (his mental degeneration is definitely implied to be a result of his sport-playing days). And JD and Spitfire are two crazy, rambunctious gals who go around and fight crime… and fight anyone else, really. Oh, and there’s Perry, a pipe with a stuck-on smile who is abused in some of the funniest ways possible.

Must Watch Episodes: “Between Brothers,” “Hornica,” Ogo’s Birthday,” “The Party,” “Baconmas.”

Mongrels

2) Mongrels (available on Hulu and region 2 DVD)

Premise: Five crude animals live in a back alley and get into all sorts of surreal, crazy situations.

Why it’s Off-Putting: Puppetry (well, it’s really “Muppet-ry”) tends to put audiences off, unless it’s the Muppets themselves. It wasn’t particularly marketed well, and BBC 3 seemed very uncomfortable with what was essentially Family Guy meets The Muppets. British audiences don’t really like their TV “pushing the envelope” in terms of edginess.

Why it’s Brilliant: Hidden behind the excessive crudeness is a hilarious show that contextualizes the crudeness and pop culture references so even audiences across the pond could understand. It also helps that the characters are strong enough at their core so that non-fans of the poor-tasting jokes could at least love the characters instead. Nelson, the metrosexual star, is an earnest go-getter who often gets pushed around by Destiny (an aggressive, diva dog) and Vince (a foul-mouth sociopath fox), but has a decent friend in Marion (a moronic but loveable cat) and, to a much lesser extent, Callie (a sharp-tongued bird). The show bounces liberally through cutaways, montages, and throwbacks, all among gags harping on 9/11, abuse, racism, and even neutering. But the very nature of the puppets blunt the impact, especially when you realize how terrible (in an entertaining way) these characters are.

Beyond that, though, on a technical level, the show is top-notch. The puppet work is as good as, and even better than at some times, the Muppets. In HD, the show looks beautiful, with the cinematography and lighting highlighting the puppets eyes to really make them come alive. Excellent casting allows the voices to hit every note. Montages, again, are so smartly done and technically well-produced, ESPECIALLY when they parody famous music videos. And I’ve yet to honestly see a show that generally uses music so perfectly, whether in parodies, background scores, karaoke, scene transitions, or key moments. In some ways it’s remarkable that a show like this existed, and was done so well.

Must Watch Episodes: “Nelson the Online Predator,” “Nelson the Stroke Virgin,” “Nelson the Naughty Arsonist,” “Marion and the Force-Field,” “Nelson and the C***’s Speech”

Dan Vs.

3) Dan Vs. (available on iTunes and currently airing on the The Hub. Check local listings!)

Premise: A psychopath rages war on various mundane things along with his push-over friend, leading to bizarre and surreal situations.

Why it’s Off-Putting: It’s completely and utterly an anomaly on The Hub’s lineup of shows. It’s a bit more adult-oriented, and while the content isn’t explicit at all, Dan Vs. is a bit strange to see and experience. It’s also an odd premise to hang one’s hat on; on the surface, it doesn’t sound appealing.

Why’s it’s Brilliant: Dan, voiced by Curtis Armstrong, is perfectly cast. Armstrong brings the unrestrained menace to his VO work, while maintaining the whiny undertone to keep Dan Vs. from going too dark. Dan’s plans to destroy whatever he hates – exercise, stupidity, skiing, reality TV, dancing, etc. – are wonderfully outlandish, in a Pinky and the Brain kind of way. The show is funny as all hell, and it’s always a treat to see how far things get with Dan on the warpath.

There was always a chance that secondary characters Chris (voiced by Dave Foley) and Elise (voice by Paget Brewster) would ruin the surreal fun. Luckily, the writers were aware of this early on and worked to make them both interesting as well. Elise has her own dark secret – being a high-level, top secret agent who works for a semi-inept government agency, and Chris is a charming if sad soul who overeats and follows Dan around due to his own lack of agency in his life (he’s the Dr. Watson to Dan’s hostile Sherlock Holmes). Things grow even more complicated with Elise’s parents, who hate both Dan AND Chris. Elise’s mom, also, is a secret agent who works for a corporation, and just happens to be Elise’s arch-enemy. All this in the midst of the insanity of Dan’s revenge schemes. If that sounds like too much, at least watch it so Dave Foley can continue to get paid and get himself out of his exorbitant debt.

Much Watch Episodes: “New Mexico,” “The Barber,” “Elise’s Parents,” “The Wedding,” “The Family Cruise”

 

Amazing World of Gumball

!

4) The Amazing World of Gumball (available on iTunes and currently airing on Cartoon Network)

Premise: A blue cat and his brother live in an insane, multi-animated world where almost anything can happen.

Why it’s Off-Putting: Gumball’s core character design isn’t appealing at first glance, and the various characters, all of which are animated in various different styles (hand drawn, stop-motion, CGI) just do not look like they will work. It has the appearance of a foreign, experimental film, and the first few episodes are simply passable.

Why it’s Brilliant: I wrote about this before, but it bears repeating. Somewhere along the line, late in season 1 but definitely in season 2, Gumball took off. I’m not sure if it was because of a bigger budget, but the cacophony of variable animation styles blend together so incredibly well that it defies every and all expectations. It makes Paperman look amateurish. Watching an anime-ish designed character interact with a 3D designed character on top of a filmed set is beautifully rendered, and even when the action speeds up or the scene requires tricky editing, everything flows beautifully.

I think the key to what makes the show shine is how the writing is A PART OF the animation. They don’t seem like separate entities. There’s usually two schools of thought here: storyboarders are the writers, or the writers write and storyboarders storyboard. Gumball FEELS like it’s all one heavily connected unity, from the original pitch in the writing room to the final audio mix. This results in a such a glorious assault on the senses, leaving your eyes as satisfied as your funny bone. The characters are so fun – Nicole, Gumball’s mother, is a fantastic standout – and they get into deliciously crazy situations that have set pieces that, quite honestly, will leave you breathless, both in laughter and in utter awe. (As I write this, this may be my favorite show on the air right now.)

Must Watch Episodes: “The DVD,” “The Fight,” “The Words,” (DEFINITELY “THE WORDS”), “The Treasure,” “The Job”

Pound Puppies

5) Pound Puppies (available on Netflix and iTunes)

Premise: A group of specialized canines work to find and match pups and dogs to their proper owners.

Why it’s Off-Putting: The original designs for this updated show were, in short, horrendous. And the first seven episodes are embarrassingly based on them. The cutesy premise seems geared towards a much younger audience, which is more akin to Blue’s Clues or Rollie Pollie Ollie.

Why it’s Brilliant: Pound Puppies saves itself by taking the cutesy premise and exploring it in its entirety, emphasizing the sad, depressing elements that go along with being alone and unloved. The show (in kiddie fashion, of course) deals with ideas of being an orphan, of abandonment and loneliness, of companionship and friendship. Each of the members of the Pound Puppies come off as stereotypes at first, but slowly grow into their individual selves. While not a funny show, there’s a soft warmth to it that resembles the warm tones prevalent in Hey Arnold and Recess – mainly because they share similar writing staffs. Also helping was DHX taking over animation duties from episode 8 onward, so the show looks less butt-ugly than before.

The second season, admittedly, was a far cry from the first, falling into the same trap that seems to hurt MLP’s second and third season, becoming goofier and sillier, moving away from the intriguing dramatic tinge of the first. Still, it has a lot of heart and Erik McCormick as Lucky is in some ways my favorite VO work on the air right now. And hearing Michael Rappaport’s distinct New York’s accent come out of a dog’s mouth is always funny.

Must Watch Episodes: “The General,” “Taboo,” “I Never Barked for My Father,” “Mutteral Instincts,” “Pound Preemies”

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