Just let Grundy Lead the Legion

Okay, so once again I made what was probably a huge mistake and I watched one of the old Superfriends episodes. (Yes, I am extremely addicted to the Boomerang network.) Now, this particular episode was titled "The World's Deadliest Game," and the plot was about as stupid as one might guess.

The episode begins with a scene from within the Legion of Doom, and what were all of these supervillains doing? If you guessed plotting the destruction of the Superfriends, then give yourself a standing ovation. Yes, I said give yourself a standing ovation and not a mere pat on the back. That was a tough question to answer.

Now Solomon Grundy was the first person to speak, blabbering something completely nonsensical. Truly if you are the Legion of Doom, at what point do you realize that it makes absolutely no sense to have an idiot zombie at your evil planning meetings? After Grundy said whatever it is that he said, and thankfully it seemed that most if not all of the Legion of Doom acted as if Grundy did not even say anything, Brainiac came up with a simply brilliant plan. He (or it, since Brainiac is a computer after all) noticed that Wonder Woman, Hawkman, and Black Vulcan were in space helping to repair a space station. Brainiac decided that he would use his cloaking device to make the Earth seem to disappear from those three Superfriends. At this point, the Toy Man chimed in and said they would then send some sort of distress signal that would lead the three to think that the Earth was light-years away, causing the Superfriends to journey to a planet covered with Toy Man's toys. And then after this, it was the Riddler's turn to tell everyone that he would use a series of riddles to lead the other Superfriends "out of the universe" where their three comrades were located. It was a brilliant plan, and it almost worked because I've noticed that the Superfriends somehow collectively start out every episode even stupider than the Legion of Doom, but seem to have a very steep learning curve that takes roughly fifteen minutes to traverse.

So Wonder Woman, Hawkman, and Black Vulcan do get very confused when the Earth disappears and they get tricked into pursuing the false distress signal light-years away. And when they get out to the place from where the signal is emanating, wouldn't you guess it, they get sucked into a black hole. I'm going to try to keep the physics talk to a minimum here, and I'll allow for the Superfriends to actually survive this fall into the black hole. However, once again, as I have pointed out before about some of these Superfriends type shows, there are some inconsistencies that I think are horrendous.

First of all, I guess that I'll allow for the possibility that Black Vulcan can fly faster than the speed of light because otherwise the Legion of Doom would have had to wait longer than the length of time that the Superfriends aired to even see if this stupid plan was going to work considering that this fake distress signal was coming from light-years away. Once inside the black hole and on the planet of toys, Black Vulcan noted that even he wasn't able to escape the black hole's pull flying at full speed. Okay, I'll go along with this, I guess. Black Vulcan can fly faster than the speed of light, but just not fast enough to escape the black hole. I guess this is possible in theory. (Actually it isn't possible in theory to fly faster than the speed of light, but I suppose it is possible in Superfriends theory.) However, what is truly troubling is that while these Superfriends are being pestered by Toy Man's toys, Toy Man is able to monitor what is transpiring on the planet and control the toys remotely from Earth. Let me say that again. He is able see things precisely as they are happening light-years away, hear exactly what the Superfriends are saying, and provide near instantaneous remote controls to the toys. I'm sorry, but this is absolutely ludicrous. To me you cannot force Black Vulcan to be kind of, sort of bound by the laws of physics, but then allow Toy Man's planning to more egregiously violate those laws. (By the way, how did Toy Man even set up his planet of toys in the first place? And when did he set up this planet?)

Okay, so I'll skip most of Riddler nonsense, but in short, the rest of the Superfriends find themselves light-years away in outer space very near to the black hole. Superman and Green Lantern realize that they are the only ones powerful enough to venture into the black hole to save the others. This should have been bad news for the rest of the Superfriends not venturing into the black hole since Green Lantern was using his power ring to transport them through space and protect them from the vacuum, but whatever I guess... So Superman and Green Lantern fly into the black hole, they do some sort of trick where they combine powers (meaning that there is some sort of creepy fusing of the two), and then the Superman/Green Lantern super super being flies out of the black hole, telling the other three to wait three seconds before following him/them out. I'm not sure why they were told to wait three seconds to follow Green Superman Lantern out of the black hole. It makes little sense, and besides, they could have just as easily given this new Superman/Green Lantern fused being the power to just teleport Wonder Woman, Hawkman, and Black Vulcan into the Legion of Doom headquarters, but I guess that would have seemed implausible. Once everyone is outside the black hole, somehow the black hole seems to just explode or dematerialize.

Then the Superfriends all fly back to Earth where they stop the Legion of Doom as they were in the process of collecting all of the world's money from the terrified populace. My question is this, if you are an overtly evil organization like the Legion of Doom, why do you even need money for anything? Are you going to acquire this money and then use it to pay for the supplies you might need to carry out your evil schemes? Or will you just go and steal the supplies you need for your evil schemes?

Wow, cartoon writers had tremendous talent back in those days!

Form of...An Ice Toboggan!

Some time ago, I watched one of those fantastic Super Friends cartoon shorts starring everyone's favorite junior super hero duo (or trio) the Wonder Twins (and their blue space monkey, Gleek). For those unaware (and you are the fortunate ones), the Twins consist of a girl and a boy, Jayna and Zan, with the abilities to change into any animal and any form of water, respectively. I know what you're saying, Jayna seems to have made out pretty well with the wide variety of options she has, while Zan really must be useless. After all, what more could Zan possibly do other than change into water, ice, or water vapor? Oh, be patient! You'll see!

Now the title of this particular episode in question was "Tiger on the Loose." As you might guess from the title of the episode, a tiger had escaped from the zoo and was now on the loose. Now I saw this long enough ago that my memory of the episode is not perfect. However, I do recall what I think are the key points. After the tiger had escaped, the zoo kingpin decided that it was only right to fire the girl that was the tiger's trainer/handler or something along those lines. Since I can't remember what her name was, I'll call her Girl. A little bit later on, a teacher leads a class of students that were evidently on a school field trip to the zoo back toward their school bus. Who can say how many students made it to that field trip that day, but one after another they all boarded the bus, and it was not until the teacher herself had boarded that anyone noticed the 500-600 pound tiger in the back section of the bus. And this makes sense to me. After watching this episode, I think back to the days when I rode a school bus to school and wonder how many tigers might have been hiding out in the back seats, with their orange and black fur blending perfectly with the green seats of the bus, but I digress.

But as is usually the case when there is a minor problem like an escaped tiger on the loose, there is only one thing to do: Get the Wonder Twins via the Teen Trouble Alert! So the Wonder Twins hear about the problem and go into action. They arrive at the bus to find the tiger on board with the frightened children easily within striking distance. So what do the Wonder Twins do? Does Jayna turn into some equally formidable animal to keep the tiger at bay? No, try again. Does Zan turn into the form of...ice to keep the tiger penned up until the children can escape the bus? Good try, but no. Did the twins sacrifice the space monkey Gleek so that the tiger would have something to eat other than one of the children until they could get the children off of the bus? Nope - this is likely the best possible solution, but the twins opted for something else. If you guessed that the twins left the bus to go get Girl, then you would be 100% correct!

And when I say the twins left the bus, I do mean both twins. They did not have a discussion and say, "Maybe one of us should stay here at the bus, you know, just in case the tiger decides to show some non-vegetarian tendencies." And there was no discussion like, "Maybe we should at least leave Gleek here to keep the tiger distracted. You know, because he could start doing his jumping rope thing with his tail or his trick where he holds six ping pong paddles with the tail. At least the tiger's focus will be on Gleek and if he needs to eat anything, Gleek's his man, err, monkey - space monkey." No, it's, "Let us, Wonder Twins, who have powers - although fairly crappy powers - leave these helpless children and go get help from Girl, who has no powers."

And so it was done, the twins and Gleek secured girls help, Zan turned into an ice toboggan, Jayna turned into a donkey, or some other pulling animal (I think), and with Girl's help, they were able to coax the tiger off the bus and back into his cage. Girl was hired back by the zoo after it was clear that she was not at fault for the tiger escape. Of course there was some moral in the story about jumping to conclusions or something like that and everyone lived happily ever after...except for the seven children that the tiger ate on the bus. I know it was seven because I counted the children both before they got on the bus and after all were off. (Okay, so maybe I'm lying about this last part, but it is what should have happened considering how insanely retarded this plot is with the twins leaving the children on a bus with a tiger to go find some "help.")

This was one of the stupidest plots that I've ever seen in a cartoon...

Perchance to Write a Cartoon

I've almost come to the conclusion that at one time mental patients were in charge of developing cartoon programming. I know what you are going to say; you are going to tell me that I should not watch certain shows if they are so offensive. And you are probably right. However, in my defense I will say that I watch cartoons because everything else on TV is far crappier - well maybe except for this. Well with that said, I'll tell you about an experience I had watching the Boomerang Network last night.

So I was watching Boomerang late last night and they happened to be showing one of those Superman cartoons that I would imagine was made during the 60s or 70s. (I did my research, and it was actually made during the 60s.) The title of the show was "The Wisp of Wickedness," and in the show some sort of evil mist comes from outer space and inhabits a hat. At least three different people put on this hat, and it causes them to do evil things. And this makes sense because one would expect that a hat inhabited by an evil mist would make good people do evil things. Also, one would fully expect that any sensible person, when finding a hat just lying on the ground would certainly don the hat irrespective of the hat's history. (It makes one pine for the days of the 1960s when evidently such things as head lice did not exist...) I mean, if I found a hat lying on the ground I would certainly wear it because of even the small chance that I can turn into a living snowman by doing so. That's always been my dream.

Getting back to the actual plot of the show, once Superman finds out that people are mysteriously doing evil things, he goes into action. He discovers that the hat must have been the source of the evil and manages to separate the hat from the evil mist. At this time I would like to point out that it was a good thing that Superman encountered this evil hat while Superman rather than Clark Kent. Again, it is clear from this show that during the 60s, no one could resist wearing a hat found lying on the ground. We can only assume that Superman was able to resist because that particular hat just would not have gone well with his blue body-length tights and red briefs. If Clark Kent had found the hat, I'm sure we would have seen a plot play out in this cartoon very similar to the one that played out a decade and a half later in Superman III.

When Superman discovers that it is the mist that has caused the hat to be evil, he realizes that he cannot actually grasp the mist, but he uses his very advanced scientific knowledge to realize that since this mist is a vapor, it can be frozen. (The process is called deposition.) And so Superman uses his freezing breath to freeze the evil mist and then throws the now solid mist into outer space, never to threaten to inhabit innocent Earth bound hats again.

Great stuff that is, but extremely contradictory. If Superman was able to use his freezing breath to freeze this mist on Earth, then how in blazes was this mist not frozen when it was initially in space? I know that Superman has an awesome freezing breath, but he cannot possibly freeze something better than the vacuum of space that has a temperature of 2.725 Kelvin - close to absolute zero. Also, while it's great that Superman was able to throw the frozen mist into outer space, and while this means that he could be an excellent starting pitcher for either the Mets or Yankees (particularly since he does not have a fatigued right groin), since Superman was not in the vacuum of space when he threw the frozen mist, the frictional energy caused by the drag of the atmosphere certainly would have sublimated the frozen solid back into mist. Sorry hats; you still must beware...

Great job there out of the writers...

Before there was Inspector Gadget...

Many people who know me know that I spend much more time watching cartoons than one who is ostensibly an adult without children probably should. Of course, I can always counter back that I more than create proper balance by virtue of the amount of time that I spend watching C-SPAN as well. But the watching of C-SPAN is a discussion for another time, perhaps, and so I will return to the topic of cartoons.

Frankly, I think that most of the cartoons that are created these days are atrocious. What, is it that when selecting ideas for children's entertainment people actually go through a process similar to this? It's extremely bewildering, let me tell you, and for this reason I tend to go for nostalgia and watch cartoons that were around when I was growing up. And of course this makes the Boomerang network perfect for me. For those who do not know, Boomerang is operated by Cartoon Network, but shows primarily much older cartoons. But in watching this channel in recent days, I have come to the realization that cartoon creation for children has perhaps always been done in an idiotic fashion.

A few days ago (I cannot say with certainty on what day this occurred), I happened to be watching Boomerang late at night or very early in the morning and I came across the program The Robonic Stooges. Now if you guessed from reading this show's title that it was a cartoon about The Three Stooges, then give yourself a pat on the back. Apparently, the Robonic Stooges first appeared as part of a show called Skatebirds in 1977, but then began a sixteen episode run of its own on January 28, 1978. And I know what you are certainly thinking right now, because it was the same thing I was thinking when I saw the show: how in blazes did it take people so long to come up with a great idea like creating cartoon versions of the Three Stooges, but only as cyborgs, who went around fighting crime? I mean gosh, if I were creating a cartoon this is the very first idea I would come up with...if I were an advocate of torturing children, which I am not.

So this is a good idea for a cartoon? So, I can only gather from the creation of the Robonic Stooges that the target audience for the Three Stooges was children. I guess this could make sense because I do have a hard time believing that adults would find the Stooges that entertaining. Maybe it's a generational thing, but I just don't get it. But let's go back to the thesis that the original target audience for the Stooges was children. The timing of this show's creation can only mean that the children of this country were distraught that their beloved Stooges were never to perform again. After all, Moe, Larry, Curly, and Shemp were all dead by 1975. I'm sure those people in charge of children's programing at CBS in those days must have been saying, "These poor children, their adored Stooges are now all gone and there has not been a Three Stooges movie since 1970. I know what we can do! We can create a cartoon where bionic versions of the Stooges haphazardly foil crimes! This idea is a winner!" Yes, that idea certainly was a winner and proves that people in entertainment just don't get paid well enough for great ideas.

Milestone

First of all, this is a big moment for me. I never would have guessed that I could possibly post seven times in one month. I mean, during both January and February I almost got all the way up to seven, but for some reason I could not push beyond that six-post barrier. This is a magical event for me, kind of The Brave Little Tailor-ish.

But what would I possibly discuss in this monumental post? Well, none other than the Power Rangers! I can say quite honestly that what caused me to watch Power Rangers for the first time those many years ago was a nostalgia for a favorite cartoon of mine from my early childhood, Voltron: Defender of the Universe. Voltron was great; you had five humans who were faced with crisis after crisis, and in dire circumstances, they would pilot five giant robot lions. These lions were all hidden in some location surrounding the castle where the humans were based, and they usually could only access the lions from within this castle. Once within the lions, they would continue to battle the attacking evil, but would almost always have to unite to form one more powerful robot: Voltron. (And yes, I do know that there were other forms of Voltron as well - I can remember seeing the cartoon for the vehicle Voltron on occasion as well - but the lion Voltron was shown on television far more regularly.) And once Voltron was formed, there seemed to be no beast who could withstand its powerful sword. Oh, that was great stuff, but let's revisit the Power Rangers now.

The Power Rangers suck. I'm sorry, I just cannot possibly speak eloquently about this crappy show, or make that, these crappy shows. It is most disturbing to me that this show (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers), which apparently first premiered in the United States in 1993, just recently started its fifteenth series. Yes, that's right; we are now on the fifteenth entirely different series. If you have seen one episode of any of these Power Rangers series you are probably wondering just as I am how this is possible. Check that, if you have seen two episodes of any of these Power Rangers series you are certainly wondering how this is possible. If you have seen one episode, you are probably saying to yourself, "this is stupid," but if you have seen two episodes, you are probably thinking that you could write for the show but you would have to use a pseudonym because you would be ashamed to let anyone know whom you respect, and likewise respects you, that you are responsible for producing any of this crap.

Now, it is not because each of these episodes is essentially the same that this show is crap (although it certainly does not help matters), it is rather that the plot of this episode(s) and the acting within are so atrocious that one has little incentive to actually tune in again. One actually has a greater incentive to hit his or her television with a baseball bat (or some similar blunt object) so as not to have to watch the program again. But in reality, the plot did have similarities with Voltron's plots, but the presentation was horribly different. In Power Rangers, in every episode, there is some hand-to-hand combat. This is not necessarily bad except for the fact that there is a lot more choreographed dance-like nonsense that takes place leading up to the fight. There is also a lot of talking going on during these circumstances. If you're going to have a fight, then have a fight. If you're going to have do a lot of talking leading up to the fight, with a lot a dancing included, just commission someone to write some music and let's just turn this into West Side Story. Finally, the Power Rangers do end up defeating the monsters (as the Rangers wear tights in the process - another strike against the show), only to be forced to face one of the monsters who has grown to a size that dwarfs the city. (And yes, this happens in virtually every episode.) What are the Power Rangers to do? Well, they just say they need "Megazord Power" and summon their Zord robots who just happen to appear barreling down the landscape toward where the battle is taking place. Now, they don't actually fight with the individual Zords, they just immediately merge to form the Megazord. This begs the questions: what is the purpose of ever having the Megazord split up into individual Zords, and why would the creators possibly want the actors to fight these beasts while wearing tights?

But the larger question is who is possibly watching Power Rangers now that has allowed them to create fifteen series? I mean as children's entertainment goes, this is far less damaging to a parent financially than such things as Hannah Montana (which I talked about at length previously), but it is even more damaging because this is far, far stupider. So parents, stick with C-SPAN.