LTA: Classic Logo Videos (part 2)

 Last time I discussed a misguided attempt at addressing trolls and fake logo finds, a product of its time, but not a good look when you think about it. So today I'm gonna go over something that also aged considerably. Scary logos. As I had talked about before, I was on the CLG Wiki, this was back when certain details were not only present, but considered mandatory. These two things were cheesy factors and scare factors.

Wanna know why scary logo brats are a thing? That kind of behavior has been normalized by the wiki for years. Now, you may think these make perfect sense, but when you think about it the arguments fall flat. A logo being scary is subjective, some may be sensitive to loud noises or certain visuals. Even cheesiness, where people play amateur logo critic with various company logos. It wasn't until years after on AVID that this was replaced in favor of animation types, choppy animation can be considered camera controlled animation for instance.

Sorry I just wanted to vent, of all things to word off anyone coming into the community for the first time.

If you find certain logos scary, that's your deal, but there's a problem when that subjective feeling is treated objectively by multiple people, thus giving a whole bunch of logos an unfair reputation that has persisted for years, and may still be so in certain sectors.

Now, as indicated in the last part I'm focusing on videos by one of the now defunct Closing Logo Group bureaucrats, so he would either embody the views of the wiki or has a big enough voice to sway others, whether intentionally or not.

And before I get into the video I wanna make something clear. I may be critical, I may mock some aspects, but that doesn't mean I hate the videos. I want them to be preserved and I'm just speaking out of angst that it may not be possible now. Also this analysis will be a little bit different, because rather than focusing directly on the content of the video, I'm gonna take a look at the spots and give you my opinion, unless I need to address something he said.

Top 10 Scary Logos

After a content warning that is funny in hindsight, Stephen delivers an opening statement that reflects what led me into sticking with the logo community, that logos are a good avenue to get creative, that they can give a company an identity beyond a mere name. He then goes into the prospect of scary logos, and he's not necessarily out of line with his explanation, that a bad identity could put people off, though this is subjective, it may not work for you but it can work for everyone else.

Now, he also makes a point that he made this list because of the lack of videos like it, but i was able to remember at least two lists like it, one that is floating around somewhere, the other being made by someone who was once the head honcho of YouTube commentaries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLAe0mBDDJ4

Either he didn't look that hard or he felt those didn't count for some reason. He would then disqualify such classics as the Viacom V of Doom and the Screen Gems S from Hell, well good, I don't have to hear the familiar suspects, hold that thought.

10: Prism Entertainment

Basically considers the first half to be creepy, and his attitude on it reflects on the initial page read for it. He considers the first half to be pointless, only to mention that it is omitted on laserdisc releases put out by the company. So basically, the first half was used to represent its VHS releases.

Anyways, the logo was more or less made to flex the maker's technical prowess. The logo was designed by Ed Kramer, who was behind a number of notable logos. Ever since he revealed himself as the creator, people had become a lot kinder to the logo and consider it to be well made for the time.

Stephen would claim the logo sucks, which, that's your opinion, and you're just upset you didn't figure it out.

9: Stretch Films

The Courage the Cowardly Dog footage was a dead giveaway. I get why he has it here, because as a kid, honestly it was kinda creepy. Takes me back to when I lived in my old house and watched TV up in the attic. What made it stick out was the fact that it appeared Straight Outta Nowhere, good for a laugh, and after a few seconds of silence, and I was a wee lad back then.

Of course given what kind of show Courage the Cowardly Dog is, it makes perfect sense for this logo to appear at the end, the show has almost every kind of creepy attached to it, unsettling, slow build up, the sense that something is seriously wrong... and I wouldn't want it any other way.

Before we move on I wanna say one more thing about the company. Remember the banana man variation of the logo? I remember seeing it on TV time ago, and to my shock the logo would become more elusive over the years, no one managed to get an upload of the logo on YouTube until time later. Hits different when you managed to witness a hard to find logo, then see it come back again.

8: Children's Television Workshop (worm/snake/whatever it was)

Back in the old days it seemed Children's Television Workshop could never catch a break. They stray from the sugary sweet path and all hell breaks loose.

Either I'm too old, or it's hard to sell me on this. It really feels like he's reaching to justify this logo being here, like if you think the logo is scary that's fine, but when it comes to explaining why, less is more. The logo being blocky, it's more or less just a sign of the times, honestly think it really suits the decade it came out, the 70s. The theme isn't even that scary, it's somber, S-O-M-BRRRRRRR. And you know it's personal if he doesn't even bring up the alternate theme that was used on its appearance at the end of Christmas on Sesame Street.

Though I'm more upset that there are scarier public television logos out there, and I don't mean WGBH, I mean this.

See?

7: Sunbow Productions

One thing I wanna point out is Stephen's account on how he came across this logo, and got into logo culture in general. YouTube, hell video hosting sites in general, are a gateway for people who want to get into certain niches, including logos. You got to see uploads across various sites, YouTube, Dailymotion, Veoh may it rest in peace, Live Video if you even remember that and Google Video according to Stephen, to how he discovered this one.

He does address the burning questions one would have when discussing this logo, and I can understand where he's coming from... but to me it feels like the company was backed into a corner on some things. Firstly the animation and sound design. It could be possible the company had to deal with a low budget, they were working on their first series at the time, and what was that series you ask? The Great Space Coaster, a testament to 80s music culture and one that tries to jump out at you. Much like how Stretch Films' logo suited Courage the Cowardly Dog, I'd say the Sunbow logo suited The Great Space Coaster.

Whether it be a stylistic choice or built on a low budget, it is what it is.

6: Oz Film Company

This would be the part where I'd just laugh at the prospect of someone laughing at a human face, but I get certain aspects work against it. Not counting the more commonly known upload that had a dramatic soundtrack included, if the logo plays in dead silence it can make the logo feel suspenseful, especially for how long it goes on.

But I gotta say, old film look? This logo was made literally 100 years ago, going off the initial year it was uploaded... which he does bring up, so I'll chalk the comment up to a poor explanation. It's kinda sad this logo was considered to be scary, because in some ways it was quite revolutionary. It is one of the few vintage film logos to have some form of motion, most you got otherwise was the second Solax logo (later to be discovered), the first Goldwyn films logo and Germany's own Decla Film. I love the tricks they used, having Princess Ozma wear black clothing against a black background, the dark color sceheme not being easily caught on prints.

So there's an explanation, but no shame if you found it scary, whether silent or having a more dramatic score in the background on certain colorized prints, can't convince anyone else otherwise.

5: Renaissance Pictures

No comment. Given that Sam Raomi didn't work exclusively on horror movies, to wit, Renaissance handled shows like Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, corny shows for sure, which would undercut the logo's tense nature.

By this point, I wanna bring up that a lot of people love this video, whether it be for its comedic factor or coming out at the right time. For the latter half the comedic elements are starting to show, and I'm not gonna nitpick these unless I have to.

What this second amounts to is lashing out at the overall direction of the logo and how it scares people. Which once more, fair enough, I get where people are coming from on it, but there is a bright side. It's the kind of logo you can never forget, it sticks with you for better or worse, you know it's a Raimi production when you see it. I've always been curious to the story behind this logo, and after many years of it just languishing on, the most anyone was able to find is the reference for the painting at the start; Raphael's "Head of a Youth", thank you AVID.

4: Asymmetrical Productions

Hearing Stephen talk about this, one can easily see the influence he had back then, complaints he made would persist on discussions of logos, lest it was the other way around, plot thickens; eggs are metrical are the magic words here. Hearing him get flustered over the logo's nature... I mean it's funny, and he could just be amping it up for comedic effect, why overanalyze something that was not made to be taken entirely seriously?

Of course regarding this logo, it's David Lynch, how much of his work have you seen? Sure he's not a horror guy, but he is a weird and shocking one, and that is on full display for his vanity cards. Of course he wanted it this way. But good on you for making it humorous at least.

3: 3-G Home Video

I'm just gonna say it outright, this portion aged poorly. For context, the 3-G Home Video logo was infamous for its loud volume, based on a poor quality upload posted years ago. Because of the nature of the company, a public domain distributor, it was hard to confirm if the logo's rep was justified. It wasn't until years later that a cleaner upload surfaced that rehabilitated the logo's reputation. So it's kinda awkward now to go back to a video back when the logo's rep was what it was, but hey, it represented the times and provided a good idea to what things were like.

Maybe Stephen can save this with a funny reaction? Oh shit he did. While, once more, it's funny how most of his reactions aged poorly based on new info coming out on the logo, it's saved by some good joke deliveries, and you could argue his anger works as a joke on its own too.

2: Films Incorporated

Poor quality uploads can't save this logo. Got little to say in defense of this logo, aside from one thing. Stephen bring up how this logo predated student films and that they would get scared when they saw it. Well, allow me to get personal. In the fifth grade, we were shown the 1981 TV movie The Wave, and this logo appeared at the start. I honestly wasn't scared or aware this was the logo I saw. For a time I thought the company was just called A Films Incorporated or something like that.

Also funny thing about Films Incorporated and how I came across its article when I did. Its crazy how much information on the company had come out since, from appearances to older logos to a concrete company history.

1: Klasky-Csupo

A little side-note, wouldn't you know it another one, the ensuing coverage has often been considered the apex of the entire video, one of the few scenes people remember from this video, even those outside of the logo community. So I'm gonna try to not be too harsh here, mostly because I can kinda relate. Klasky-Csupo was a weird company, and I mean that in a good way. Their shows stood out from others, and at least back then they could get very twisted. I was admittedly scared of the first Klasky-Csupo logo when I was young, due to its abrupt loud start and disjointed music.

The second logo also caught me off guard the first time I saw it, but I grew to tolerate it. It was there to stay for the remainder of my childhood, all anyone can do is learn to get along. And let's be fair, especially with Rugrats' end credits sometimes they can be creepy, whether it be that calliope, or whatever it is, playing in the background, or when they use one of the more dramatic music cues throughout it. I could also related to Stephen's experience with Rugrats, perhaps thanks to me watching later era episodes I assumed the series was aimed at very young children, then I saw the older episodes and I was set straight once and for all. Of course overtime the shock factor on the logo would wear off, I recall seeing some meme edits of the second KC logo when I was young and just getting into YouTube, here's the exact video I watched back then.

Anyway, back to Stephen, I love how over the top he acts here, it's a case where an extreme reaction works effectively, or helps prepare you for it. Funnily enough the way Stephen shows the logo here actually makes it more... tangible, for a lack of a better term. For instance, there were details I missed such as a hand laying down Splaat's mouth (Splaat being the name of the face)... and that's it. Now, when it comes to the number one of any comedic countdown, you need to have the right kind of finish. What is all of this building up to? Taking a picture of Splaat and setting it on fire. Of course this isn't played seriously, and it's funny how his antics cause a fire on his lawn, and then I just forget this was in response to a logo that scared him.

Closing Statements

Regarding the previous part, I know I was negative with the last video I saw. Along with addressing the worst possible ways of dealing with trolls, I was more or less just upset, upset over the fact that these and many other classic videos are gone. No longer on Stephen's channel, and any uploads that turn up would be taken down, whether by request or by force.

Stephen doesn't realize he is sitting on a goldmine in the best possible way, and this countdown is a compelling case to how important these videos are. A lot of people have been with the logo community for many years, and it's nice to have videos to go back to in order to remember the old days, keep a lasting fingerprint on certain chapters in logo history and show how far it has evolved.

I have more respect for the content than I do the person, he is definitively a lost media hoarder, preventing people from easily accessing his videos, and there is a demand to see them again. It's the logo enthusiast in me, the archivist in me, and the fact I learned the hard way why these videos are hard to find. Either he takes the corporate approach too seriously, or he has gone insane, who knows? Stephen, I get copyright infringement, but why stress over something that you don't even host anymore? It's kind scummy, so with that said, here's hoping some more great videos would be unveiled in the future, but until then, I have but four words to Stephen if he is still gung-ho on copyright striking re-uploads.

MAKE A DAMN ARCHIVE

You can take away the respect, but you can't take away the memories, and that's all I have to say. Thanks for reading. 

LTA: Classic Logo Videos (part 1)

 Whenever it called for it, I stress my interest in company logos, but I hardly go that deep into why. For perspective, I've been involved with the logo community as early as 2010, what started as me discovering uploads of company logos on YouTube, led me to making my first account, well, anywhere, that wasn't for a class assignment, on the good ol' Closing Logos Group wiki. I had an interest in logos as far back as the early to mid 2000s, just for how creative most companies can be, and looking into an old company, The International Picture Show Company, led me to the wiki.

I was young at the time and had no idea how things worked, yet somehow I managed to gain and maintain writer privileges, got the occasional reprimand but I kept at it, was around to see some milestones such as confirming where the first CastleRock Entertainment Television logo appeared (I didn't participate beyond appearing in discussions but I did interact with one of the lead investigators.) and make some friends, well, technically those who sent and accepted friend requests on the wiki, I still remember the first two to do so, The Logo Channel (based on the associated YouTube channel I don't have the definitive CLG handle lest it's MrLogo), and SCMediaWorks.

Thing About Logo Series

SCMediaWorks was one of the wiki's bureaucrats, and with that kind of power, you'd be a fool not to expand upon the group beyond its wiki. With logo enthusiasts taking up residence on YouTube, and the one calling card being a channel filled with logos, you can't just do the same thing if you want to establish the height of your position. So, the best way to stand out was a dedicated series, something I discussed in my last logo related post, but for the sake of context, here we go again.

These logo series were essentially glorified compilations, and I don't mean something like a logo history, but rather various logos with a certain gimmick. Simple in concept but come on, this was back during the old days of YouTube, if I was in the community back then I would've eaten that shit up. The series would more or less be used for brand establishment, you'd see logos for the creators' proverbial companies before and after these videos.

Back then the main creatives like LogicSmash and Shadeed329 were dominant in the logo series field or just made a name for themselves at the right time. Whereas LogicSmash is still going strong after all these years, Shadeed bottomed out long ago, his temper caught up with him and he dropped off the face of the Earth. There were videos that discussed the drama he was involved in but who knows if they're still up.

What I'm trying to say is that it's one thing to learn that a niche interest you have has its own community, but it's another to see it try to expand to new areas. Even more, these serve as time capsules of different eras of the logo community, from sheer simplicity to becoming more than that, and SCMediaWorks was up to the task.

Thing About SCMediaWorks

Okay also went on that long tangent to reflect where things were and what they would be. SCMediaWorks had led the CLG Wiki or was just in a high position during its mid to late years. Among his contributions were acquiring logos, which would be shared by dedicated logo channels, he did compilations that singled out variations of closing logos, such as one he did for the old soap opera Dallas, but what I remember the most from him were two series in particular, Logo Mysteries and SCMediaWorks' Top 10, along with the occasional rant.

Some of you coming into this may not know about it, and I can't really blame you because as of now, these videos are hard impossible to find. Not because of poor preservation mind you, but because SCMediaWorks has become a lost media hoarder. You can't watch these videos easily, but you can find them if you look hard enough, and if you decide to post them on YouTube he'll give you a copyright strike, not even a comment asking you to take it down, his first choice is to copyright strike it.

For perspective, the video I posted on my archive channel was an unlisted upload. The upload was on a playlist that wasn't even made by him and it can't be accessed if you go on his own channel. You can argue that the video was still intended to be used, just not publicly, but while trying to upload the first episode of Logo Mysteries the upload was cancelled due to a pre-existing copyright strike. Someone had uploaded the first episode before me, I saw it, it was later taken down, and the original upload was private to begin with. That in mind, until I get a good argument to the contrary, SCMediaWorks is hoarding what can be considered lost media, and you wanna know the craziest thing about this? He hasn't been on YouTube, anywhere really, for over four years, he's not actively making content, he's not even involved with the current logo authority, but he's doing this shit? Why strike videos that you don't even want up on your channel anymore?

That in mind, I get reuploading videos is tempting fate, even if he's making no effort to preserve history on his own front, like seriously dude, just offload your videos onto a dedicated archive account and leave it at that. Just because you want nothing to do with these videos that doesn't mean everyone doesn't, there are people who loved these videos when they were out, people who're more than eager to see them again. It's not just some embarrassing video projects that you don't stand by anymore, they were not only treats for the logo community, but they served as time capsules for logo related news and content, represented the flavors of the week, and even more they serve as steps in the community's evolution. How can we keep going forward if we have no sense of what we're leaving behind?

Okay this is the archivist in me getting heated, but the point stands, and if it's not me bringing these videos up, it's someone else whose been around who is invested in the community. Someone I saw as a good figure in the community... I can't let this pass. Where somebody abuses the copyright system and doesn't even allow people to find essential videos easily by putting the videos up elsewhere themselves, you expect me to keep my mouth shut?

So what'll be the more mature route than to complain about two videos of his that happened to age fairly poorly? And no I don't mean Logo Mysteries. From going on the offense against little kids, what I gotta throw in DED6 now? With that there's nothing more mature to do than to complain about videos that were definitely of their time. Starting with...

Logo Trolls and Pirates: An Overlooked Pandemic on YouTube (introduction)

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." -War Games.

Trolling is fun to do, but never fun to go through. Sometimes you have no idea you're going through it, and by the time you realize you were already played. When it comes to dealing with trolling, their main goal is to get a reaction, and the only sensible thing to do is to not give it to them. Unfortunately, for 80% of the world, that is a fool's errand. In return for giving a reaction, it may be enough to pull the veil back on the reactor and serve as an invitation for further trolling.

But in this situation, it's not about trolls harassing people... it's people reposting logo videos, and by people, I mean for the most part little kids or grown people on the spectrum, no offense intended. Though I'm part of the logo community I'm not afraid to admit there are people who take things too seriously. It's as much their logo as it your's, we're all thieves, like taking the CBS eye and plastering the Hanna Barbera swirling star inside of it, and using it as a federally registered trademark. As far as logo trolls go, there was only one who managed to make a good effort, and that was tyson83782, may his fake logo histories live on.

There were trolls willing to make an effort, and honestly the only offensive thing about these trolls is how little effort they put, but hey, they made enough of an impact to warrant one big video apparently. I would link the video, but I'm no snitch.

Now the Video

Leaning into the branding tidbit of logo series we get an idea to who was behind this. This was a collaborative effort between SCMediaWorks and the Closing Logos Group, which is both cool and kinda upsetting given how the video aged. Also someone named Ryanasaurus0077, who if I recall was more active on the wiki, still has some traceability but any drama he was involved in, or what they consider to be drama, is mostly lost, but I nabbed a URL off the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20160613143531/http://www.closinglogos.com/thread/5294327/WTF+ryanasaurus0077 ), and Shadeed as far as a joint credit on another company shown to the end (S.A.K. Media Holdings)

After that we get a popular logo meme from the time, the BND of Doom, look it up at your own risk. I wanna bring this up because of what this is supposed to represent. It starts with a clip from the PowerPuff Girls (DA ORIGINAL) where they're watching TV, the BND of Doom logo appears with masking that while better than what I can do, you can make out the outline around the characters the logo is around, anyway this scares the girls, obvious looped animation that could easily be spliced to work around... all of this in a PSA against stealing logos...

I know nitpicking is frowned upon, but fuck it. What were they going for here? Was this intended to represent them uploading a logo, they apparently stole, onto YouTube and they got comeuppance? Best theory I could give. Why not just make an amateur sketch? Sure it would be more cringey but it would get the point across, and SCMediaWorks has shown himself plenty of times so it wouldn't be out of the question, like right now, sorta.

He would introduce himself, and I bring this up because he refers to himself under a different name, his full name is known, but for some reason on his last name and it's not close to how it's normally pronounced, he calls himself Zaslav... and I'm on the floor laughing. Zaslav, like the guy who is delisting a stark bulk of archived content and giving people little means to access it, sorta like SCMediaWorks delisting his old content and giving people little means to access it, you can't make this shit up, I swear, he became the thing he swore to destroy.

Also a little sidenote if you do that goofy different sounding name it would only work if you're doing a sketch, or this whole thing is just an elaborate parody of overractions to logo trolls, or it's just a specalized persona done for a laugh... but it isn't, as far as I know. This is followed by a basic ass title-card, which to be fair isn't the worst I've seen of things like it, give it a C+, not bad TrickyMario7654. He goes on a little spiel, and in spite of some effort to show some restraint, he goes off almost immediately. The crimes mentioned in the thesis just center on blowing up comments, with such offensive statements including "From (insert show this didn't appear on here)" to re-uploading other's captures, which, for the example I get why they used it, but the closing combo for King of Queens is the most common logo combo there is, I mean anyone could argue they captured it themselves, someone else had done it already, but I digress.

Stephen does a little impersonation sketch, with an apology attached, that's gonna be rare, and then we get toward the crux of the special. Apparently the subjects to be discussed are so bad they make an adult spout grade school insults. Now look, I'm not one to shit on people who happen to take a topic too seriously or get angry, it's all for entertainment. I maintain that TheMysteriousMrEnter was doing what was in at the time, angry reviews, DogsEatingDogs6 hasn't done anything morally reprehensible (if he yells at kids while pretending to be Bowser y'all know you're reaching hard), and Toy Story 4 sucks that hard... GamingMagic13.

I'm going at this out of secondhand embarrassment. It's one thing to be an immature logo kid, it's another to go at it in a not so smart way. These people want to fuck around, you give them the reaction, nobody wins. As mentioned before the logo community carries a rep depending on who you ask, and there's little way around it. The best I can do is just call out bull when I catch it. Going into each channel I'm gonna try and dig up whatever info I could on them, and hope I don't pop up on anyone's radar.

Firstly, Austin Alexander, also known as LogoBoy95. If the year is exact he would've been twenty by the time this video was made. Austin was banned for spamming and making multiple sock accounts, to the point he would put out a proverbial hit on those he blamed for banning him. To sum it up. Stephen cites the moment the straw broke the camel's back, where Austin posted a capture of a logo found by someone else.

Not to step on the toes of those who were involved in drama that's going to have occurred a decade ago, god I'm old, but I want to see it from both sides, especially since with the change in heads at the current logo authority those part of it are no longer in power. The capture was posted on the old CLG Wiki by CooleyBoy10, or at the time FromTheWordsofBR, and Austin posted it on YouTube. On one hand they are two separate spaces and Austin acknowledged who originally posted it.

Now, if BR intended to post the logo on his old channel and Austin beat him to the punch, it's an open and shut case, CooleyBoy found it and it's his right to share wherever. But... that wasn't brought up, if it was even a thing at all. Of course there's the matter of the video in question just taking the still image and posting it on YouTube... okay now it's coming together. An argument can also be made relating to how Austin's supporters acted, but this was after Austin's video was copyright struck, regardless of the context.

Just because one side is right, that doesn't mean they can't do some things wrong. If you copyright strike somebody regardless if it's the right thing to do, you can expect some backlash no matter what, just ask Michael Rosen. Or maybe Stephen isn't the best narrator for this, because he makes fun of a 20 something's reaction to all this... and I'm like dude, don't throw that stone in that glass house.

While he also brings up examples of Austin's behavior that can validate the attitude expressed... he decided it would be more practical to cry about something trivial. Not everyone can rely on one's word alone, you need to have physical evidence to support yourself, otherwise just say "I was unable to gather the screenshots to support this unfortunately." We may never see the extent of his harassment of Shadeed, which is ironic since both people would wind up on the CLG Hall of Shame.

If you want to establish someone's rep or get outsiders to understand how bad they are, you have to do better than what Stephen did here. Because by this point, all I learned from this is that FromTheWordsofBR did what he felt was the appropriate thing to do, even if it's something frowned upon, and Austin and Stephen are two sides of a similar coin.

Now, is Austin Alexander still at it? Well, sorta. I can at least confirm he has a trolling list on his channel description, and he does the occasional upload. But benefit of the doubt to Stephen it's best to be vigilant. Of course, the only way to win against someone like him is to not engage with him, but for a lot of people that's easier to request than to do.

Next up, Angrybirdsfan2003. While you could claim that for Austin he was an adult, Stephen right now is going after a kid, and compared to DED6's angry rants on plush videos this is a lot more serious, though depending on what you consider to be worse is up to your point of view. It is at this point Stephen reveals that Angrybirds, or Jacob, was a major inspiration to make this video.

He goes into the same spiel he did with Austin, relating to combo re-uploads, and while we get evidence on that, what we don't get is details on harassment he does, well not yet, this isn't the first time I watched the video. We get a dark implication relating to Stephen not holding back on calling people out in spite of their age... dude, it's a fucking kid, kids are stupid, you seriously think they know any better? And of course it's all over logos.

Now, we get back to Stephen showing the comments... while making the mistake of showing his own that would put him in a similarly bad light. Whatever floats your boat Kyle. This is another case of being upset about something understandably, but going about it in the worst way possible. Why not just ban the account and the ensuing sock-puppet accounts, let him fester and scream into the void? That was the grand conclusion to the screenshots. No harassment, just being a pest and people just adding fuel to the fire. It's hilarious, but if you participate and try to represent your wiki... congrats, you just set the community back.

A not so Quick TATbit

Let's get historical. You heard about TAT Communications Company, right? Well not really if you're not in the group. Back when this video was made, the TAT logo was still missing and people had very little to go off of in terms of what the actual logo was like. It was based on a print variation that appeared in articles and recollections shared by those on the original Closing Logos Yahoo Group.

The logo was sought after, and anyone who had access to it were gonna share it and rake in all the glory. Even deceptively. A lead would be uncovered during that time, it being the logo's theme, and in the context of logo theft shenanigans would ensue. Whether or not he was the first to do this or just one of many, Jacob would produce a mockup of the TAT logo based on what people assumed the logo was like and others would follow suit.

Now, no judgement toward logo recreations, these are essential, and dare I say very well done, but with someone like Jacob and others these are just cheap MS Paint mockups. Now, there is a case to be made here, if Jacob made the video with the intent of claiming it's the real thing, but while we got the video, he never established the actual upload, if he did in fact poise it as the actual one or just a recreation.

Stephen does get a bit dramatic over this, and it's hilarious in hindsight given what would become of it. If you have the opportunity, the software and the lack of knowing any better, of course you'd attempt something like this. And with his overreaction, there lies trolling opportunities and Stephen is all the more eager to give his reaction.

But was all of this justified? Nope. When a partial capture of this logo was found, it being nothing like the recreations brought up, it helped diminish said recreations and thus took some momentum away from them... bar any snots who did recreations of the sorta found logo but there you go. But what about diminishing the value of the actual logo when it was found? Well, years after this video, everyone was excited for it, news managed to hit BlueSky (and Twitter if people still use that waste of space), and it was treated as a groundbreaking moment in logo history. Stephen was afraid that people wouldn't care if the actual logo wasn't found, well, maybe enough time passed from the fake logo finds.

The logo community knows what's real and fake, so what was he afraid of? Was he trying to gain appeal outside of the niche? Does he think everybody on earth cares about the TAT logo? Was he trying to find the logo himself and rake in all of the glory? Take it away Charles Xavier.

By the end, it's essentially two grade school kids calling each other names, only one of them has been held back by a few years. Anyway what is Jacob up to now? It seems not much, he has a new channel but he hasn't uploaded anything new in two years, it looks like he has gone into making logo renders as far as his deviantArt suggests, so maybe he, you know, grew up or just stopped giving a shit? Alright let's move on.

This next one I've been seeing a lot of back then. Dan Bickner, or 217Dan. I can safely confirm that he did in fact steal logo uploads and posted them on his own channel, but let's see what Stephen- oh, nevermind, this segment was contributed by a different person, well, written by for Stephen to read. Dan is heavily built up here, his bad rep established, and with so much build-up you need to have a finish to justify it... because he just goes on, and on, and on, complete with a Downfall parody.

Anyhow, the extent of his, ahem, crimes, were taking uploads and putting them on the CLG Wiki while taking all the credit, and not even acknowledging the original uploaders... stuff like that would help your case, go after people who steal for their own gain and cause trouble on the wiki. Not necessarily on board with trying to drive people off of the internet though, and if Dan's a troll and seeing this effort to drive the person off, it would make them want to come back and revel in all the attention.

Also two things, why single out a Wii U recording? If anything it goes to show the capabilities the console had, but what we're supposed to hate it because it didn't sell well? Second, for another instance of hindsight or poor aging, this video includes the second Columbia Pictures Television logo with the Coca-Cola byline, which was revealed to be fake, and I bring this up because Stephen was the one to spill the beans on that.

But as far as confirmed cases, we don't have to worry about the WETA logo, that he singled out as an example of using still shots in place of the actual logo because that's been found in full. A callback to one of Austin's crimes where Dan uploaded a logo image posted by someone else, and he didn't give credit as far as I know.

He then uses a cartoon clip to sum up his reaction and I'm like, what is this FoxtrotDeltaLima497 type shit? He even introduced it as if Usagi Tsukino was right with him, no irony either, yes I used the original name for some reason, yes I also did a cartoon reaction clip, but one is played as is while I sat my ass down and tried to make something of it.

Since there's no crime grander than stealing logo videos, he once more drags this out, this time with a YouTube deep cut. Uh, you remember Norm Gets Mad at all his Haters? The fat guy who said fuck you multiple times? It was used as a reaction clip by lower tier Doug Walker wannabe commentators from the era? Thus this video's age shows more than Saved by the Bell. Anyway both of Dan's channels are still up but I have no idea what he's even doing nowadays. I do have one thing to add to this. Long ago I remember Dan making a dumb comment on a video by LogicSmash, another user got mad and likely made an ableist slur and got in trouble for it. The comments are gone so take this with a grain of salt.

Lastly there's Perry Mason... insert opening theme, many thanks Svengoolie for introducing me to that gag. Another name I've seen a lot of on YouTube back then. If you by chance found the video and had grown tired of it, this segment is a $100000 Pyramid parody... for some reason. Still five minutes left, and he decided to turn this into a game show... an unfortunate connection.

Anyway, I guess Stephen couldn't find enough to say about him that would justify his inclusion, so he did this gag. What I could get from this is that he's just a cheap Dan Bickner copy, and that Stephen is incensed enough to call these children and immature grownups criminals... They may've wanted a reaction, they got it, with interest.

There's someone stealing logos, then there's someone who reacts poorly to it, feel like that point has been hammered into my skull so hard and I wanna share that feeling with you all. Like the dude claims that these cause harm. Like holy shit, at least you can argue cartoons can make you feel things.

One last thing to bring up here is him issuing a thanks to SuperMarty-O, a user who would be outed as a fraud years later, also Shadeed who would, once more, be shunned by the community years later.

Closing Statements

Now, Stephen makes it clear this video was made in order to make people aware of bad faith characters in the logo sphere, along with fake uploads, and I can get behind that. Those not in the know could be brought up to speed and know who to look out for... so what was all this shit? I get trying to be funny but I can't see anyone laughing at most of these gags, those that perhaps only Stephen could understand. When you represent a community you can't make it mostly about you, because what if you don't represent the values of the wiki, or what if it backfires and thus you took away any legitimacy it could've had.

This video was a mess, and it feels like it functions better as a warning against reacting to trolls. Look, I get the problem and it's important to bring it up, but the way he went about it made this video age poorly. It's a poor representation of the wiki, and given his position there that just makes it worse, to the point others would be lumped in with lesser characters associated with the wiki just because of the more vocal ones drowning out the sense.

While there is novelty in seeing the logo community make original presentations, this was a misfire. But at the end of the day... I don't hate it. Just because you have a lot to say against something that doesn't mean you have to hate it. This video was a product of its time, coming out during the apex years of the Closing Logos Group, where I got my start, and beneath all of the rage rambling there is some logo history on display. As mentioned before this was during the time nobody had any idea what the actual TAT logo was like, and it's good to get some info on notorious trolls even if he wound up giving them reactions, but I guess anyone could've made that mistake.

Logo Trolls and Pirates: An Overlooked Pandemic on YouTube is the St. Anger of logo community videos, it is poorly executed, disorganized, definitely of its time and reeks of acting on one's gut without thinking of how it would turn out. But I'd still check it out, well, if I had the time to do so and I've run out of other stuff to watch.

I've gone on for too long here. Next time, I'm gonna go over a countdown list that nutshells the scary logo community.

LTA: Logo Video Series

Logos, yeah, I'm a logo enthusiast, and I get saying that would raise some suspicions, so much so I need to address it. There is a logo community, but there are two parts to it. The first part is the kooks, you know, the scary logo, spoofing logo, Greeny Phatom for a deep cut, low end spectrum types, also know one guy who staged a fake lawsuit against a YouTuber that made fun of him, while ironically being guilty of theft himself. If you're curious to what that's like it may be lost to the ether, wish you were there.

I've been involved, for the most part, since 2010, back when I was a member of the now defunct Closing Logos Group. My interest in logos come from the creativity many have, they can add a little extra layer of personality to whatever they're attached to. I belong to the more nuanced sector of the logo community, that is, one that actually seeks to identify, discuss, and above all, nix the scary logo bullshit. If you wanna be more specific, it's essentially two ends of a spectrum.

Along with various uploads of logos on YouTube, some bigger names took it a step forward. They created video series relating to logos, and I promise you it's nothing like what you may expect. Unfortunately, most of these had fallen through the cracks, ending prematurely or the creators had removed their videos. I was able to see a bulk of these so at least I have some recollection to go by.

That said, here are four logo centric series I know about.

Spoofin' Network

Created by LogicSmash with supervision by Shadeed A. Kelly/ShaDeed329, the first logo series I recall finding. It began in 2008 and lasted for four episodes, and for the time it had some decent effort put into it, well more effort went into the opening and closing presentation, because the middle's results don't always match.

The series is basically a compilation of logos, those of which are altered based on the theme of the episode. The first episode centered on colorization, applying filters to black and white logos, or logos that already had color and they decided to mess with it. Man, colorization is easier than I thought it would be. The second episode featured audio swaps, using music from logos and pasting them into other logos based on how well they fit, which upon closer inspection some don't land as well. The third episode was also audio-centered, featuring piano covers of various logos and... it's not really amazing, interesting idea but... meh. The fourth episode just had the logos played in reverse, and that's it.

I think what sets this series back is its over-ambition in certain areas, no doubt the most effort is put into the opening and closing joints. It's to the point I feel like one of the guys behind this has taken it too seriously, like, fine it's your videos, but give me something more than this. Still like the series though, goes to show how ambitious people can be in the community, and as far back as 2008 it says a lot. I was a bit critical of the minimalist nature of the episodes, but that just means it held up better than most videos like it.

Now, the series was headed by, or at least executive produced by someone who would turn out to be problematic, Shadeed. Shadeed was a major figure at the old Closing Logos Group, until he was outed for his vicious attitude and other instances of internal drama. And yeah, based on what I saw of him he had a bad attitude, he had yelled at me three times, twice when I was starting out on the CLG Wiki and once on Instagram when I asked if a video that talked about him would be reuploaded when the uploader was moving to another channel.

Shadeed would drop off the face of the earth in 2018, and leaning heavily into the big company persona, treated it like such. The videos were removed from his channel but archives are out there if you wanna see for yourself. At least I can leave happy knowing Shadeed wasn't necessarily the creator of the series, just a producer.

Logo Mysteries

This was one of two series created by then popular logo content creator SCMediaWorks. As the name implies, the series centered on mythical logos, those that are suggested to exist, but no evidence exists to prove it, bringing together verified clues and ideas to potential whereabouts. However, the series also seeks to debunk certain myths that were not substantiated or there is evidence against them.

There were three episodes released, one of which made use of a guest star, Logo Archive, themed around Australian logo mysteries. The videos were taken down by SCMediaWorks some time ago, same with other logo centric videos, and I was about to declare the episodes to be lost, but it turns out someone had posted the episodes onto the Internet Archive.

Now, I was going to post the episodes on YouTube, but as I uploaded the first part, apparently a previous reupload was taken down due to a copyright removal request, and at that point I wound up privatizing two other uploads I made, in the event SC has lost his mind and is trying to wipe these videos out, or there's some drama I don't know about, or this all happened long ago but broken upload systems are forever. If nothing else most of the videos are on the archive already, and I'm gonna contribute videos that didn't make it on beyond the Wayback Machine, because my account there could use some content.

Though it seems SCMediaWorks sought to move away from logos, I have a theory to why the series was not kept, and that is owed to drama that occurred in 2018. A user by the name of Supermarty-O, a veteran of the community, had made a name for himself with rare logo finds, one of which being an old talk of the community, a Columbia Pictures Television logo with a Coca-Cola Company byline... uh, Coca-Cola had some film and television stakes at the time.

It would soon be revealed that most of Marty's finds were fake, including the Columbia logo, and it would apply to other logos credited to him, such as a PolyGram Television logo that was used as a basis for the first episode of Logo Mysteries, albeit not the main topic. That aside a bunch of logos would be disproven over the years and since said logos were considered to be open mysteries, well, why keep it around?

But whatever the case, it was a good idea, perhaps marred by false leads and amateur research he had to go off of. However, that isn't to say there have been some discoveries made from it, most of the logos covered in Logo Mysteries have been found years since, like the Greater Union Distributors and MGM Television logos. There is a place for Logo Mysteries, hope somebody can bring it back someday because there will always be some loose ends that need to be tied.

Though there may be a darker reason why they're gone and will continue to be gone.

SCMediaWorks Top 10

Speaking of SCMediaWorks. This is fairly straightforward, all that changes is the topic of each list. There were four lists I remember, obviously logo related, Top 10 annoying logos, wasted logos and... scary logos. Yeah, he hopped on that trend, I'm not a fan of it, it's immature, and a lot of the choices he made were either weird or incredibly predictable. But I'll give him this, when he found out someone mocked his scary logo video he took it well, he can take a joke at least.

Most of the lists were definitely, you know, of their time, back when certain changes were recent, though some things were bound to change since. On the other hand some aspects held up, like how certain logos are annoying to see constantly... and that's all I got. Of the surviving lists are his Top 10 Annoying Logos, Top 10 Wasted Logos and Top 10 Scary Logos. I remember watching his list of the Top 10 Worst Logos (whatever it was called), but it looks like nobody archived it yet, hoping that changes because that was my favorite one.

As a side-note, he had taken down most of the videos, setting some to private and others to unlisted, and to my surprise he is copyright striking public uploads. It happened to me. Guy's a fucking hoarder. Look I get why, but I did it so people can have access to videos they used to watch. If you intended to bring back the videos yourself then fine, but if you just strike public uploads down while keeping them inaccessible, we're two individual sides of an evil coin. This would explain why YouTube uploads of Logo Mysteries as well are hard to find because he flagged down re-uploads of them as well.

Stephen, if you don't want people cutting in on your property, make an archive, put up videos you don't want anymore so people can see them. If you try to bury them it will just make people want to find them even more, classic case of the Streisand Effect, never meet your heroes. But then again YouTube isn't the only place to find videos, and I'm not gonna say where.

I'm just waiting for him to rear his head and lecture me on stealing, and if you are gonna come round here Stephen... can we just have a simple conversation, I'm receptive, just give me your reasons, I'll give mine, that's it.

Okay good? Let's move on.

Reconstruction Zone/Rebrand the Brand

Those were CLG Wiki era series, now we're going into the AVID era. By this point the AVID wiki had launched a YouTube channel, and along with any logo updates, why not spice things up with some original content, while taking advantage of those who have the tools to make their own logos? They have two series as of this writing, and given the concepts are similar, let's cover them both.

Rebrand the Brand is a competitive showcase, where people would create logos for existing companies, their contributions being ranked by the end. Fairly simple premise, but it works. You have a playing field for people to make their own logos and you can essentially go crazy with how you want to make yours. It's a good way for people to refine their skills and see how others do the same. It leans into why I stuck with the community, because logos are a gateway. When it comes to making or editing logos it can sharpen your skills in design, editing, whatever have you, help unlock skills you had no idea you had. There is some serious application to be had, good on AVID.

Reconstruction Zone is similar to Rebrand the Brand, but they take a different direction. The series focuses on recreating logos that have been deemed lost, based on certain clues to how said lost logo played out. It also includes characters and some comedic banter between them. Good to add a little extra personality, and the models they use are surprisingly varied, from 2D stills to a fully animated 3D model, the latter of which representing one of two of AVID's mascots, really trying to make the brand stick but no complaints there. Points made about Rebrand the Brand can apply here too.

It's an attempt to make things more professional, and they're going about it the best way they could, good on them.

Final Thoughts

Much like how company logos evolve, the same can be said for logo series. From basic editing showcases, to discussions of ongoing lost media cases, to top 10s when they were at their peak, to more professional editing showcases with some occasional extras. It all serves to build upon a dedicated niche community, one built upon company logos, one that can be gradually expanded in more ways than one. It goes to show how dedicated people can be to the niche, and I'm all in for it, makes it all the more worth it in the end.

They found the TAT logo

 For every group, niche, community, on the internet or off, there is bound to be one urban legend attached to it. Something that seems odd, but also has some basis in reality. When it comes to the logo community there are many myths and urban legends that have been investigated over the years. Say what you will about them, but they've done some good work, they get shit done all in the name of preservation, and for every logo that has been deemed a myth, a lot of them have been cracked over the years, and more recently, what is perhaps the most elusive logo of all time has finally been found, for real. This is the story of the T.A.T Communications Company logo.

After ending his partnership with Bud Yorkin in Tandem Productions, Norman Lear would launch T.A.T. Communications Company with Jerry Perenchio. Lear was a legend in his own right, though mostly undone based on what had come out about him, but that's beside the point. If a show had the right amount of episodes, they could be sold off for syndication, and, well, this is Norman Lear, practically every show he was involved in back then had multiple seasons with multiple episodes.

Lear would elect to have reruns of his series distributed under his own labels. The Tandem series would be distributed under PITS Films, while TAT would distribute shows they produced themselves. After a few years, Lear and Perenchio would acquire Avco Embassy Pictures and would rebrand TAT under the Embassy Television name, folding PITS into it as well.

The PITS and TAT logos would gradually be phased out in favor of Embassy's logo, then over the years a series of sales and buyouts would see Embassy's catalog getting acquired by Sony, and if you know Sony you know what that means... a slaughter... for every one of its past identities. While some captures of logos that would otherwise be plastered over were at the very least rediscovered or not removed, TAT wasn't as lucky. It was gone. PITS was spared from this by pure luck, as TBS reruns had used old syndie prints for their airings, but there was no trace of TAT's.

For years, all people had to go by was personal recollections, and they would shape what was believed to be the actual logo. Now, one's memories are incredibly unpredictable. How you recall something would change depending on how old you were or what was going on with you. I'm speaking from experience, a lot of what I remember either didn't happen the way I remembered it or got embellished, and I think that went for people who hedged guesses to what TAT's logo actually was.

I won't fault anyone for going with what was essentially an unverified lead, but that's all they had to go by. If you knew about the PITS logo, and for logo enthusiasts back then it was impossible not to since there was an upload of that logo as early as 2006, one may assume the TAT logo shared some of its qualities. I mean come on, it was the late-70s, an era of taping before a live studio audience and conservative budgets, you seriously think we were gonna get an elaborate closing logo this time?

Now, for guesses to what the logo was like there were some simple guesses, like a star just rising up against a printed on card background. Because this was easy to replicate, and because the logo was becoming notable at that point, people began to make mockups, which is all well and good but... two things. One, they were amateur and often made by small children, and two, there were people who would often pass these logos off as the real thing.

While it didn't stop efforts to find the logo, it made things a lot more annoying. A classic case of clout chasing, no community is immune to it. By then, the search had gone cold for many years with no new leads coming forth... until a partial capture of the logo surfaced and disproved earlier theories. There is an animated TAT logo, there's an idea to what it was like, but the search was far from over.

As the logo community would work to try and become more professional, and distance themselves from certain portions of it, they would rebrand themselves under the Audiovisual Identity Database, and with it, try to build a social presence that extended to YouTube. Worth bringing up because of a dedicated series the channel hosts, Reconstruction Zone, where TAT Communications served as the basis for the first episode. People would create mockups for lost logos to provide a visual basis for them, and holy shit they didn't fuck around with it. Really putting their best players forward.

From there, the search otherwise stayed cold... and then the logo was finally found. The finder, Bored's VHS Pile, would discover the logo at the end of a rerun of The Jeffersons recorded on betamax, it was finally over, and not a single ounce of skepticism, it was one for one with whatever was there on the partial find.

As a little tidbit relating to Reconstruction Zone, JacopoTheAwesomeBoy's take on the logo, though not one-for-one, was the closest to what the actual logo turned out to be.

For my perspective, I didn't expect much for the TAT logo and my suspicions turned out to be right. I assumed the logo would just appear via a zoom out transition, with the star vanishing entirely, but no, it just settles between the top of the T and the A.

This was just one of many rare logo discoveries made by the logo community. It goes to show that when the situation calls for it, they can truly get shit done. It's more than just finding a logo, it's all in the of preservation, unearthing rare material and the thrill of the hunt, and just think, it was all accomplished before the end of the year.

Glad to see that the era of fake TAT logo finds is behind us, and all that time and effort wasn't for nothing, so with that said... what's next?

The Worst Last Season (on Cartoon Network)

Nothing lasts forever, and it couldn't be more applicable when it comes to television. Whether a show dies too soon or goes on for so long it loses what made it special to begin with. When you stick with a show for so long you tend to pick up on certain things, so when you're suddenly hit with that quality drop, it's far from pleasent.

Prologue

You may come into a series with two perspectives, either as a long term fan who’s witnessing the degradation or sudden oddity in real time, or someone who came in after the damage was done and are oblivious to the issue. This would determine where you stand with a series with no sense to the general consensus.

A big example is The Simpsons, which I’d be a fool not to bring up given the context. You can see it as a show losing its way if you were watching from the start, or if you came in later on you can adjust to the quality because, at least for a majority of the 2000s episodes the negatives weren’t noticeable compared to much later.

Some shows have problems that you can’t really pick up on unless you had been watching since the beginning, you have no idea how reviled the seasons may be, and against those who do you'd be preaching to the choir. And that is both my relationship with certain classic Cartoon Network shows, and my mentality.

The Prime Examples

Back during the checkerboard era, I'd like to call it, there were two things people took umbrage with, the Chris Savino era of Dexter's Laboratory, and the fourth season of Johnny Bravo. No comment on PowerPuff Girls since I want nothing to do with that show and I was never able to see much of a difference. I want to go over these because when I get to the main topic I know some people will be like "Oh what about these other late seasons?"

I watched Dexter's Laboratory in the 2000s, by this point both the Tartovsky and Savino eras had run their course and I was able to see a bit of each era. Aside from the animation and art direction, and keep in mind I was a kid back then, I didn't really notice anything wrong. I knew it was different, but the problems weren't as obvious to me. Of course certain gags you wouldn't see in the older seasons and the joke quality may vary, but it wasn't terrible. Dare I say even if I saw the entire series in order back then I wouldn't be phased. I get since this was worked on by Chris Savino, you know, outed as a creep people are much harsher to his episodes since they have no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But in the event you think I'm speaking in defense of a predator, one, I'm not nor do I ever intend to. Two, on the allegations let's do some math. Savino was outed in 2017, the report against him claimed his actions span back to at least a decade. That means Savino went dirty in 2007, long after his time at Cartoon Network. Therefore, as far as I know, nothing bad happened during his time on Dexter's Laboratory, and thus it is easier to separate the show from him. Under no other circumstance would I play devil's advocate like this.

Of course a show declining doesn't hinge solely on a change of leadership. Johnny Bravo is a special case where its sudden changes did more good in the longrun. Van Partible was around for the show's first season and would be gone for the second and third. In that time, new characters were introduced, existing ones had their traits or designs altered and certain aspects like celebrity cameos and talking animals were reduced.

The new seasons had its critics, Partible included, but overtime it seems people grew to accept them, especially given how the fourth season would turn out. Partible would helm it, trying to bring the show back to its roots while keeping aspects from the previous ones, and it didn't work. It somehow fared worse than the previous seasons, and most aspects criticized were those part of the first season.

In a way, the reception of the fourth season is kinda tragic, Partible had the rug pulled from under him, and in trying to bring back his vision and respect the previous one, you get the idea. Looking into it, I actually remember watching two episodes from this season, three if one of the episodes had Huckleberry Hound at the end, and I thought the episodes were fine, it's not horrible but something had been clearly lost. It's clear Partible was a fan of Hanna Barbera's shows and wanted to embody them the best way he could, but the timing of the fourth season muddled it. Maybe the whiplash is what threw people off.

That said, you have my opinion on the big examples of Cartoon Network's big fall offs back then, but what do I consider to be the worst offender personally?

Ed, Edd n' Eddy's Fifth Season

It's important to keep Dexter's Labortory and Johnny Bravo's later seasons in mind, in regard to what caused either to turn out the way they did. Creator shifts, falling behind the times, you know. This is a case where the creatives and staff largely remained the same, the series had remained in date by the time its last season debuted in 2005, I mean to be fair it didn't get delayed like Johnny Bravo did, it just took a little less than a year for EEnE. The time was right, the hands were the same, otherwise owed to the show being one of the few CN originals of the time to not be produced in-house, and you know what that means...

No excuses, no outside factors, no shakeups, no new characters that turned out to be terrible, no new actors, at most just a series surrendering to its traits.

Ed, Edd n' Eddy stood the test of time for many reasons. Taking Looney Tunes, Tex Avery, whatever have you gags and throwing them into a contemporary setting, one that the characters would occasionally break apart. There're few other shows like it which allowed it to become an all time classic.

The series had maintained some level of consistency throughout its run, I mean besides some portions of the first season, which is understandable as by then they were trying to find their legs. With consistency, it's a blessing and a curse, because by then certain expectancies are set, and if they aren't met then it can sour the experience. You can not deliver, or you can over-deliver, such is the case.

By the mid-2000s I began watching Cartoon Network more frequently so I was able to see the fifth season episodes when they were new, while checking out the older episodes when reran beforehand, I remember watching the Best Day Edder marathon so I'd have no excuse not to remember the series. I had a sense of what the series was like, and I went into the fifth season with decent anticipation.

Like many things, it wasn't obvious at first, but overtime cracks began to show, all for the worst. I hated the episodes, and it came pretty close to me turning my back on the entire series and characters. It looked right but felt wrong, similar yet different, what went wrong?

Again what went wrong?

The fifth season marked a number of changes with the series. Previously the series was produced with cel animation, being one of the last cartoons to use the style, but overtime would transition to digital ink and paint. Technically it started with the Christmas special Jingle Jingle Jangle which aired in 2004, but it aired after the fourth season had ended, so, transitional period and all that.

I bring this up because, from what I heard, Danny Antonucci stuck to cel animation by choice, so it's weird to see him switch it up. Must be a victim of reverse psychology, maybe somebody felt the style better suited the physical comedy, maybe he was forced to switch due to budgetary and time concerns, or maybe he just wanted to experiment with the process just to see what gives. Whatever the case he can do what he wants, the animation isn't the problem here, at most just leaning into other issues I'm about to bring up.

On the surface, it seems the fifth season delivered on the general core of the series, slapstick and crazy gags. However, they kinda fumble the bag with this because of how often the gags happen and the aftermath of each. Not to say the previous seasons episodes didn't go all out, but even they had a tiny bit of restraint. In this case they went full cartoony, you see gags you likely wouldn't see in the previous season, key word here is likely. I dunno, watch an episode from each and you may notice something's off.

The use of the gags here feels more cynical, for the lack of a better term. They just occur without much thought behind them, as if someone just took the gags on their presence alone and threw them in just because. There's putting things in with thought, and putting things in because, and the frequency of which, even being able to predict what would occur based on what's happening, dulls the experience, it shows a series is just phoning it in close to the finish line and want desperately to preserve fan interest. Nothing feels as out of pocket as it did in previous seasons, the gags feel more straightforward, and when you're in a cartoony world where anything is possible, the magic wears off. I'm going on about this because the gags are what made Ed, Edd n' Eddy so unique, so I sorta need to get into it.

Going back to the animation I also noticed the facial expressions, certain gestures look a lot more weird, like after four seasons seeing these characters make faces I never expect to see elsewhere. In some cases, it looks cursed, just because you have the power that doesn't mean you should always use it, especially recklessly, and if it just suddenly comes about after so long. Not to say the visuals are the only reason the season is so bad, but we'll get to that soon.

The fifth season marked the introduction of a new frequent setting, Peach Creek Jr. High. I get incorporating new scenery to increase potential plot ideas and locales, but I feel like this sorta undid another core aspect of Ed, Edd n' Eddy. Timelessness. The previous seasons had occurred throughout the summer, with little indication of progression. Of course you may argue that the series had occurred throughout summer break and it ended at that point, but that just raises the question on how much time occurs past each season, especially since Summer breaks in Canada are shorter than the United States'.

While there were signs of progression such as characters getting more mature, though this was toward the season 4 finale which was originally set to be the series finale, poetic in a way, even stuff like birthdays, the passage of time was a bit more subtle. We didn't see any true monthly progression until, uh yeah, the fifth season. So on one hand it's a bold move that could bring more opportunities, but on the other hand it could just be pointless.

Pointless, in that aside from the location little else is different. Now sure you have some gags that fit with the setting, but others do not. The setting is what it is, a setting, and one that doesn't have as much thought put into it. What do I mean by that? How about the fact that Sarah and Jimmy, younger than the other characters, go to the same school? Is this normal in Canada, this has confused me for years. You have to do a lot more than just have them go to class and hop on a school bus for this setting to have any meaning.

Now yes, stuff like grades, school sports, gossip, those do occur... in their dedicated episodes. One thing that has remained true to the series is that everything essentially occurs in a bubble, nothing that happens in one episode would be of any consequence in the other. It's safe to say these events are meaningless, and you only have to go by the experience of one episode, one or so, very dire, episodes, getting ahead of myself.

Let's talk flanderization, an inevitability for shows running too long. Characters are generally reduced to their basic traits by this point, or said traits are exaggerated in order to inspire more plots, jokes, whatever have you. It happened here, though not as obvious with most characters it shows with others. The worst victim of this has got to be Ed, who has either become a lot more dumb, or just too annoyingly happy a lot of the time, or perhaps both. I mean it was a point that Ed was dumb, but not to that extent, just surrendering to his interests and, of course not being the brightest bulb in the socket. You have to see episodes from either season to really understand this.

Other characters tend to go in and out of this, some like Sarah and Kevin tend to be more, I dunno, maniacal in most episodes, other times they act as they did time before. The Kankers while already the antagonists, are a bit more, well, antagonistic. In the past the Kankers usually turn up close to the end of the episode to throw a wrench in Eddy's scam or whatever he's doing, or just for a quick gag. You could argue they took the role of the school bullies, and if so what does that make Kevin... well, aside from the jock I guess. Jonny 2x4 has always been the weird one, and it feels like this has been amped up to eleven in most episodes, okay one. In situations like these they're worse depending on the episodes they occur in.

Eddy is more or less the same as he was, aside from being more loud in some cases. There was one or two times where Eddy became more antagonistic, and this was with Kevin during the booster shot episode. I can see this as Eddy having been pushed around by Kevin for so long he finally snapped and wanted to get some revenge, and after the whole Skipper business, can you blame him? Since he is among the few characters that changed the least, it isn't fun when he is on the receiving end, and this occurs a lot throughout the season. Okay yes this was also par the course for the previous seasons, but this just feels off, especially against the other changes.

But of all the characters Edd is the worst of them all here. In a lot of the episodes it feels like he has a more antagonistic role most of the time, combined with an air of condescension that I can't even get behind. Sometimes I feel like Edd has had enough of Ed and Eddy and is doing what he can to break from the group, which kinda makes sense since the rest of the Cul de Sac tend to favor him more than the others. Of course though, everything occurs in a bubble, so it's just one or many unpleasant experiences to go through. Edd gets his way, why should I care? One selfish act to counteract another, Kevin asked you the time and you take that as a reason to save him from a driver club in a garbage can?

Back then I hated Kevin so to see that episode end as it did hit hard, hence the overreaction if you found one.

A show is only as good as its characters, and it's one thing for them to under deliver, but if you've known about them for years and see the under delivery, you can't just let it pass, nobody has for any show like it. This is a case where the characters suck a lot of the time, and so do the episodes. The fifth season had the most bad episodes compared to others. And for further perspective, while the lowest rating an episode of the show got was a 6.0, if you look at a list of the show's episodes on IMDb, lowest ratings first, if you discount the more infamous episodes from previous seasons, almost all of the spots belong to episodes from the fifth season, these episodes rate the same as the worst Ed, Edd n' Eddy episodes, and the lowest rated episode of the entire series came from the fifth season.

So while many people may hold the fifth season in decent regard, it seems it doesn't hold up as well against the previous ones. IMDb basically serves as a community domain hence why I'm going by that site's metrics. But that aside what do the episodes have to offer?

An episode that feature the most gratuitous signs of bodily abuse, one where Edd decides to throw Eddy for a loop by calling him a no neck chump for reasons I'll never know, an episode where Eddy wants to be the center of attention at a football game and Ed just lets Eddy get taken away at the end, one where Edd goes mad trying to find a shower, and given how he acts most episodes it was so bad I actually didn't hate the episode back then.

Not to say every episode was a total miss, it's just that they weren't as good as previous ones, at most easy to get through. Among the stand outs are Cool Hand Ed for the high stakes premise, Every Which Way But Ed just for how absurd it was even though it got kinda stupid by the end, and I don't mean Ed flashing back too far I mean Eddy's reason to trap them there, is a quarter gonna mean anything by the end? I mean to Eddy yes but, you get the point. There is one more but I'll save it for later.

Back to the lesser end, of course there's the fact that what is widely considered to be the worst episode in the entire series, just so happened to be a season 5 episode. Smile for the Ed. The episode embodies the worst aspects of the season, over-exaggeration, throwing Eddy under the bus when he hasn't tried to do the same to others, and flanderization on Kevin's part. Come to think of it, most of the older episodes people hate had Eddy on the receiving end when he hasn't done anything to warrant it, again most because for at least one or two you could argue Eddy acted first. It isn't the case for that episode, not even most other episodes this season, even instances where he does they're not at the expense of others, hence how a lot of them feel off by comparison.

Also fun fact, Smile for the Ed was the only episode to not be directed by Antonucci, which goes back into how consistent things had been for the series, and why I'm so disappointed with the season. The feelings just grow for so long that you can't help but lay it out when the time comes.

But that's the journey, what's the destination and would said journey be worth it? The season finale would see Edd being framed as a bully due to a series of coincidences. The fact that Edd is losing faith in himself for hurting others, had the events of other episodes been kept in mind, had we seen the effect of Edd essentially leading Eddy on this would've helped validate a bulk of the season. Of course I'm not asking for some melodrama, I mean an instance where Edd and Eddy try to eek each other out only to piss off everyone in the making and show they belong to each other as friends.

That aside though, a lot of people considered the episode to be a satisfactory closing, they beat the Kankers and everyone's happy... at least that's how it seems. At least to me, the end of the episode was a bit underwhelming. Sure Eddy got the Kankers away, but they weren't the cause of the conflict, rather caught in the middle of Edd's coincidental beatings. Sure Eddy finally sticks up against them, but it doesn't hit like it should.

Not to mention the end loses more meaning since this was followed by an episode from the un-produced sixth season, and it had little to offer beyond a piss joke, but on a better note they had the opportunity to pay their respects to Paul Boyd, the animator for the series' opening titles.

But What About the Movie?

I know people are gonna bring up Ed, Edd n' Eddy's Big Picture Show. It's a great movie, wanna make that abundantly clear. It is a perfect finale to the series and it actually greatly impacted the characters for the better. We will never know what's under Edd's hat but we got to see Eddy's brother at least.

But on the topic of Edd's hat, I have a theory on what's under it. Remember the 2004 Fat Albert movie, when the group got back into their own world and Dumb Donald had his had off, and they saw there was literally nothing under there, I think the same could be said there. The eds are surprised at nothing being under Edd's hat, Eddy was just exaggerating and Ed questions if the lack of occupied space is causing pain.

Back on topic though, the movie works as a finale, but does it justify the existence of the previous season? No. As I mentioned before little that occurs in each episode would be of any consequence to the other. Little occurred in the fifth season that was worth calling attention to in the movie. I mean, aside from the argument toward the middle, but even then it would only work out if it was Eddy turning on Edd not the other way around. Either they deemed Edd to always be in the right, or they wanted to ignore what happened last season. If you have the fifth season in mind it also undercuts the impact of the fight because you're led to believe this was years of mistreatment boiling over, but Edd for the most part was the instigator, who just suddenly chose when to get upset, and we're supposed to pick Edd's side and Eddy must realize what he has done wrong.

Kinda broken honestly, and probably the reason why not everything needs to be kept in mind.

What I'm trying to say is that you almost don't need the fifth season, when the movie does a better job at ending things off. The digital ink and paint also helps give the movie more of a theatrical edge for a television film and makes the entire thing feel more grandiose, for a lack of a better term. Interest in the show had persisted to this point, was the fifth season made to keep the seat warm in the meantime? Who knows?

Final Thoughts

It was in the mid-2000s that I had begun to see certain things more critically. I had my favorites, and I was slowly getting things I outright hated. Ed, Edd n' Eddy's fifth season unfortunately fell into that light for me.

I had known the series well up to that point, so to see how everything was handled in the fifth, it wasn't a good experience and it hasn't got better for me looking back at it. I'd like to consider myself open minded when it comes to shows, especially overlong or underwhelmingly concluded ones. I'm willing to speak fairly to the Savino era Dexter's Laboratory episodes because they could've been a lot worse and just had the unfortunate artifact of riding off of the previous seasons, on their own the episodes are otherwise fine enough, some good even. I can even speak fairly to the fourth season of Johnny Bravo because the creator got back into it too late, and wound up alienating those who came into the series in its middle seasons, I'd even speak well of said middle seasons because they benefited the show in the long run.

But the fifth season of Ed, Edd n' Eddy, the creatives remained the same, it was brought down by decisions that ultimately didn't work. It brought out the worst in me, much like it brought out the worst in each of the characters. It felt like something was lost in the way, and when they tried to prove otherwise it just felt more cynical. It felt like a new crew was given a very literal outline of the series and took it as is without any other thought, even though nothing changed behind the scenes.

It feels worse because Ed, Edd n' Eddy is one of the quintessential classic Cartoon Network shows, dare I say more so than others like Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, maybe not as much as PowerPuff Girls given how much of a push the network gave it, but enough that it had provided ten years of content. With a milestone like that you need the quality to back it up, and one or a few bad episodes can be forgiven, but if they account for the bulk of one season, you'd think they wanted the show to end at season four and they did season five out of protest in the hopes this would end things. Either that or they wanted to do Big Picture Show but another season was included in the deal.

Whatever the case, the fifth season was hit with an inevitability that plagues many shows like it. Falling into the same pitfalls as others, a drop in episode quality and character writing quality. Had the series kept going it would've probably gotten worse, as we've seen with other shows that went on for too long, few had broke that curse.

The fifth season essentially served as a warning to what would've happened had Ed, Edd n' Eddy kept going. It's rare for a show to get better the longer it goes, and if we got what we did with the fifth season, no telling what more surprises we'd get later on. The proposed sixth season already got off to a pretty mid start, just saying.

But yeah, of all the Cartoon Network shows that have such middling final seasons, Ed, Edd n' Eddy's fifth pissed me off the most. With Dexter's Laboratory, if there were any changes to the characters they were either not noticeable or handled better, at most I only saw major downgrades to Dad, Dee Dee maybe, the worst is only noticeable if you know the older seasons well enough. With Johnny Bravo ironically it was when the personalities were otherwise reverted and the first seasons sensibilities were restored that people turned on the series.

Whatever the faults, they were much worse with the fifth season of Ed, Edd n' Eddy, there is nothing that can convince me otherwise, they would've been better off just releasing the movie after the fourth season, it would have the same intended effect. No show's season has upset me more back then than it, something was truly lost, or the worst things drowned out the good, not helping that two of the three top billed had suffered the worst.

But if you like the fifth season, good on you, glad you found some enjoyment in it and I'm not here to change that. Compared to other shows that had lost their good faith due to going on for so long, at least Ed, Edd n' Eddy was put down before it could get worse, we dodged a bullet, clearly.

At the end of the day, you can have the same heads on board, but you can't always keep the quality up forever. Know when to put the horse down.

My Experience With Just-A-Robot

 So yeah, I didn't see this coming. Just-A-Robot, a prominent commentator, has recently destroyed his reputation and career after he spoke in defense of a predator. A defense that was done apparently because he wanted to get in her pants. But a lot of you already know about that one way or another. All I could add is my personal experiences with him, more or less to highlight the general irony of what happened then compared to now.

I first met Jar when he launched his earliest or first deviantArt account. At the time I was invested in deviantArt drama and tried to get involved with ongoing incidents. It was... honestly a pretty bad time looking back, and I have no intent of ever doing it all again. Anyhow, he used to comment on most of my stuff, but I rarely interacted with him by then. Things began to pick up during the advent of drama surrounding a user by the name of PrincessElizabeth013, a Sonic artist whose issues were blown way out of proportion. The girl had temper issues and is on the autism spectrum, and a bunch of bad faith individuals sought to exploit this for their own entertainment.

Seeing a commentary on a Google chat between her and others, it was honestly terrifying if you're on the outside looking in.

Anyhow, during that drama JAR would take her side, and as this was during a time when internet toxicity was at its most raw, if you side against the majority on anything you were essentially fucked. I sided with him at first, until I caved and joined the winning team to save my own ass. But along with siding with the period's public enemy number one, JAR was accused of driving another user to an early departure from life. Nearly everyone was against him, and I had joined in driving him off the internet. After that unfortunate chapter, I just went on not knowing how bad what I did was.

So time later I would discover Just A Robot and after finding some videos of his that aligned with my views back then I started following him. Then a couple of years later, I suddenly get these comments on my old drama posts condemning me over them, over that person specifically. Well, to my absolute shock, that person would become Just a Robot. I had been outed because I had turned against him whether it was justified or not, how I went about it and doing no favors for his mental health.

If you wanna know what I did about it, I left a comment admitting what I did, would do whatever JAR suggested me to do to build some good faith, and in spite of the act still having happened, it worked out with JAR even taking it well. While expressing his thoughts on me for what I did, he also said something to the effect of, "He could've helped me grow my channel, and I backed the wrong horse"

Now, given I make content for YouTube and given his size and prominence it would make sense. But, let's go into JAR's general content, the atmosphere he contributed to. JAR is/was one of those anti-SJW/moderate grifter channels, and while he didn't claim to adhere to the one side, the content doesn't really help much. While he was able to at least explain himself beyond just "lol woke" bullshit, he was essentially walking a tight rope.

If that wasn't enough he was also associating himself with some pretty unsavory individuals, among them being resident wacko Zaid Magenta. Look at it like this, the last person associated with him that criticized him got stalked and harassed, that person was Cartoonshi. If everyone else in JAR's sphere was similar to this, what if I were to give a dissenting opinion? Would I survive in that kind of crowd?

I was never looking to get big on YouTube, and while it would've been cool to grow thanks to someone striking big, I doubt I'd have much staying power in a community like that, especially as the lid has been blown on content that even has a slight tinge of right-wing grift.

And then of course he completely ruined his career. Compared to allegations from the past drama, this time there were not only major details brought forth, but the reveal of chats between JAR and the guilty that just make him look worse. If I had taken his side back then and stuck with him, he'd probably use that as leverage to keep me on. If I sided against him and got back on when he got big, he'd also use that as leverage, maybe guilt me into taking his side because "Oh you almost drove me to self-delete long ago, you owe me this."

He said I blew my chance at getting big, but what did he do? Throw it all away on a battle he could never win. It's funny how back then I made the wrong decision, but now I managed to dodge a bullet. I'm sorry for what I've done in the past and I don't stand by it anymore, but if someone, anyone, is willing to throw their good will away out of smallness, i.e., trying to get with the accused, it says a lot about their character. Dare I say JAR came out about his past at a time where he knew his influence was strong and therefore you'd be a fool to question it.

JAR has made it a point he has managed to beat his opponents, whether that played a part in some seriously poor judgement may be clear here. He may still post content, he may apologize, who knows?

But that said, this was my piece on the matter, I'm one of the few individuals who knew JAR way before he became famous, recalling some early drama and being one of the few old heads either willing to discuss it or be around to. He's still alive, spoke his side of drama long ago, I had done the same, and now I went into this while the odds are currently well against him.

Revisiting The Secret of NIMH 2

 A long time ago I did a review of The Secret of NIHM 2. In that review, I essentially echoed the complains others had over the film, many, many others. Called it a cash grab, fan fiction, hits harder when time after you see others basically saying the same thing and you feel partially responsible.

Of all the things to hold Nostalgia Critic accountable for is influencing general perception of movies for years to come, whether he was the loudest voice at the time or did it earlier than others where traction would be had by that time. The Secret of NIMH 2 is among his many casualties and they're still trying to recover, held back only by a number of washouts who forgot what year it was. Wanna know what got me to review this movie? A Nostalgia Critic type review that was released on July 24th... 2024. Yikes.

I was on the fence when it came to NIMH 2, but then I saw a video created by my good buddy Timey that defended the film, and credibly as well, and if you ask me you should check her video out first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrtxMJQoiNA

Now, for the movie in general, is it really as bad as people claim it to be? To that it's a resounding... sorta. There are some issues with this movie, but half the time people focus on less important things or just go solely by its connection to the first NIMH alone, if not regurgitating everything Nostalgia Critic said just differently enough to not make anyone side-eye.

I'm just saying, if Bobsheaux were to do a review of this movie, I imagine him just copying Nostalgia Critic's points questioning logic where it doesn't need to be questioned, use a rat puppet in his place and maybe charge two dollars just to watch it. He can't possibly be that destitute.

Whatever I may say about this movie, while it's not great, it's not the worst movie ever, not even close to being the worst sequel, a guilty pleasure at the most, and if you want an idea to what that's like for me, here's a list of my personal guilty pleasures: https://letterboxd.com/channeleven/list/guilty-pleasures/

But shameless plug aside, there's no better place to start than the beginning... of the film... 's inception.

Background

The Secret of NIMH 2 came out during a period where video/DVD rentals/purchases were on a continual rise. Companies like Disney would begin putting out sequels for the sell-through market in order to capitalize on the success of their properties. Lacking the same budget as the movies they followed (why put in extra effort for the home video market in the event ticket sales outdo rental payments, and the whole shebang behind shares?

While a lot of these sell-through movies aren't great, at best don't have the same staying power as their theatrical contemporaries, I mean companies weren't making fine art here, they were out making a profit, a necessary evil for them, you'd be a fool to expect anything more. But you don't have to always see it that way, if these movies made up your childhood or you can look past the obvious dips and enjoy a movie for what it is, more power to you, I'd probably relate depending on what movie's on the table anyhow.

Back on topic, The Secret of NIMH, the first, its success cannot be understated. Breaking new ground when it comes to storytelling and having gorgeous animation to boot, I can see why a lot of people loved that movie, and MGM would feel the same to the point they would try to continue it in some way, but with conservative spending.

The Secret of NIMH 2 was the second to last movie put out by MGM's animation division, one of four to be exact. MGM Animation originally produced a sing-a-long series of tapes, along with a handful of cartoons based on IPs they owned at the time. But regarding the movies, they first began with Babes in Toyland, which I only saw the latter half of and became one of many films that I could never figure out until recently.

But I swear that Roger Corman took the design of Humpty Dumpty for Aladdin and the Adventure of All Time.

This was followed with An All Dogs Christmas Carol which is based more on the All Dogs television series, something that Bobsheaux never even touched upon in the slightest, at least as far as I know. Anyway, that and NIMH 2 came out the same year before ending with a mousified Tom Sawyer in 2000.

NIMH 2 was directed by Dick Sebast. Sebast primarly did work as an animator for Disney productions like The Rescuers and Winnie the Pooh, later doing work for various Hanna-Barbera and Ruby Spears cartoons among other small roles. On one hand, he was involved with X-Men Evolution and even directed nine episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, those that at the very least aren't considered to be on the lower end. But on the other hand he is also somewhat attached to shows and movies I'm not particularly fond of, here's looking at you Sonic SatAM and Ultimate Avengers. The last thing he's credited to is the DreamWorks movie Home, where he was not credited, but chances are he doesn't mind that.

The film's story is credited to three people. Sam Graham and Chris Hubbell appear to be a writing team, sharing nearly the exact same credits. They had contributed in some capacity to the writing of films like Oliver and Company and The Little Mermaid, they wrote a later season episode of the Beetlejuice cartoon, four for The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest and wrote the teleplay for Night of the Twisters. But like Sebast they also have a BTAS connection, writing for one episode of that series, you wanna know what it was? You ready?

I've Got Batman in my Basement

Yes, what is generally agreed upon to be the worst BTAS episode of all time, you have them to thank for that.

But what about the third person? Jymn Magon is attached to quite a bit, but for more notable ones he was tied to Quack Pack, a product of its time at best, and was also attached to cartoons produced at DiC entertainment's French division Les Studios Tex, handling The Wacky World of Tex Avery, hated as that show is and serving as the headwritter for Archie's Weird Mysteries, a show I thought was cool, but then realized it's an E/I show using a cool premise to trick people into learning things. As far as other movies go he wrote Casper: A Spirited Beginning and Casper Meets Wendy, all two of those live-action Casper TV movies, An All Dogs Christmas Carol, I mean granted he did the story and part of the screenplay for A Goofy Movie, but you wanna know what else he was involved in?

Titanic: The Legend Goes On

Yet another punching bag of many years ago, he served as a consultant on it just for the record. If you want my opinion on the film there's an uncut version that, while not a great movie at least is better held together than the more commonly spread cut version.

As far as the cast goes it's a who's who of celebrities who were falling or fell off long ago and are looking for some easy money. Among them being William H. Macy, Ralph Macchio, Harvey Korman, Eric Idle, and we do get two returning actors, Dom DeLuise who was clearly never picky when it came to movie deals, and Arthur Malet in his final role... before he would retire and die in 2013.

I also wanna single out Meshach Taylor as I used to watch Designing Women reruns, but you may recognize him Mr. Wright from Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. And speaking of Nickelodeon actors, the second, or third if you count the 1994 pilot Arnold Shortman, Phillip Van Dyke was also in this. Also Hynden Walch, who you may recognize as Penny Sanchez from ChalkZone... and nothing else. But something tells me her presence here and what she became known for later on had given her some slack relating to who she played. Lastly, it's important to note that the voice of Mrs. Brisby, Elizabeth Hartman, had passed away under very dark circumstances. She was played by Debi Mae West in the film, and she is perhaps best known for playing Meryl in Metal Gear Solid, and she does a decent job in this movie for whatever it's worth.

If it wasn't obvious before, Don Bluth had no involvement in this movie, but whether he was on or not wouldn't affect the quality of the movie because throughout the 90s he had begun to lose his touch. You may argue Anastasia was an outlier among his more mediocre movies, and that MGM greenlit this movie because the Bluth name was more or less redeemed for a time, but that's a stretch. You already know how this movie turned out, so I'm not gonna go into the impact, it's a byproduct of trying to be like the biggest reviewer out there and share his opinions on movies, and it's never going to stop. I'm delaying the inevitable by rambling on and on about behind the scenes stuff, I should stop.

Okay, the movie, finally

As something different, I'm gonna do my best to try and explain the issues people have with the movie, it may not work, but it's different.

NIMH 2 would center on Timmy, a character who served a purpose in the first movie, but was otherwise relegated as part of a goal had by Mrs. Brisby to help him, while contending with the rot... whatever the first movie was about.

The movie would begin with a recap of the first, and this is where red flags are raised for most people, as it presents Mrs. Brisby's husband Johnathan as the main hero. As much as I'd love to bitch in the name of a cartoon rat, I think I know what they're going for here. Mrs. Brisby is the main player in the rest of the first NIMH movie yes, but Johnathan Brisby was the one who helped free the rats from NIMH, giving them the means, the will, to start their own civilization, he may've even lent a hand in the creation of Thorn Valley.

You may say Mrs. Brisby was also instrumental in helping Thorn Valley, I mean you may be right, but don't act like Johnathan had no influence either, if anything I give the movie props for trying to provide extra focus to the rest of the Brisby family, bar certain stretches. And in the case of Timmy, who spent the entire first movie sick, it's a good way to better flesh him out, what more is there to him?

Now, his selection as the rats' golden boy is kinda forced, I'll give you that, and some claim it should've been Martin in the lead, as Don Bluth also would've suggested, but I also see what they're trying to do here. Timmy is just coming into life with a greater purpose, and he feels he isn't ready for it. Martin who had more experience feels he is better suited for what's in store for Timmy, which would be a setup for what happens later in the movie.

As far as him being the chosen one, I mean I get citizens of Thorn Valley expressing optimism and fate for the next in line in the Brisbys thanks to their help. A little overblown, sure, but these reviewers going on and on about how Mrs. Brisby is a god they prey to you'd think they'd see something of her in Timmy. That would explain that celebration at the start of his arrival.

As for the cautious nature of Mr. Ages, he has faith in Timmy, but wants him to work to earn his reputation, to not just base himself solely on the achievements of his family alone, to have the experience and discipline to back it up. You don't become a hero in a day, you gotta work your way up. At least that's what I feel like they're going for.

Along with Timmy there's also Jenny, who is considered to be one of the film's few objective positives. She has enough personality and tact so she wouldn't feel out of place, as well as some importance to the plot. She had escaped NIMH and would inform Thorn Valley's higher ups about what's currently happening. For when they refuse to act on it and for those who say they should throw caution into the wind and do it... you wouldn't last one presidency, if conflict is the first thing. Yes it's ideal to help, but as the first movie shows, there will be bodycounts, and the rats escaped NIMH to live.

Oh but, building up Timmy. Perhaps he wasn't ready yet and his training amounts to protecting Thorn Valley from outside dangers, and that them going back to NIMH may lead to NIMH finding their way to Thorn Valley.

Up to this point I've ignored the musical aspects, and yeah... the songs are pretty bad. On paper they're decent, but in practice... you know what, no, I'd still take off-key singing over the autotune or swapped voice they used in The Loud House Movie. It seems like the songs are used just to help bolster the length, or because that's what kids were into, even if it doesn't fit in the context or tone of the film that came before.

I mean say what you will about Ferngully 2, at least it began as a musical of sorts.

Now as for Jeremy who is seen helping to scam forrest animals by pretending to be the Great Owl, I dunno, I guess they had to have him do something and justify him being within reasonable distance so he could rejoin Timmy and Jenny. So basically plot convenience, guess they backed themselves into a corner with that.

Getting to NIMH, remember how Martin acted earlier on? And how even more we were led on to believing one particular scientist was the big bad? It's a good ol' bait and switch, sorta. Anyway blah blah blah, evil Martin, agreement, blah blah. The rest of Thorn Valley would arrive, presumably realizing Timmy and Jenny were gone they would set out to find them and then they were like, fuck it, we're here, we may as well see this through, fruitless to go back now.

Alright let's talk about this. Martin was jealous that he was not considered to be sent to Thorn Valley, early on it was shown he knew where it was, hence how he could get out there. One can assume he traveled to NIMH to prove himself by stopping them, and either he got caught and experimented on, or his selfish desires led him to become corrupted.

Martin being the bad guy actually has more weight than people want you to believe. It plays a part in Timmy's character where he cares deeply for his family, Martin especially, so to realize the one behind all of this was his own brother, it hits hard. Compared to it just being a generic scientist that few of them know beyond some aspects, it gives this film one above sequels/d2v movies by representing an emotional connection, you don't get that as often, and while that is offset by a very goofy song it's still there.

It also says a lot in regard to Timmy's character, where he would be willing to help his brother even in spite of his corruption, "I have my brother back!". For his bravery, proving himself and potentially destroying NIMH for good, he is given a statue alongside his father for helping to bring the rats to where they are now, literally and figuratively.

Of course some of you may say "Wait a minute where the fuck is Mrs. Brisby's statue for the millionth time!?"

Alright I'm gonna be real, I'm aware of what she has done in the movie, benefit of the doubt to naysayers that maybe she did enough to warrant one. Maybe it's an oversight, maybe the extent of what she did was big but not statue big, she wasn't trying to prove herself against Johnathan Brisby, she was just trying to help her family and those close to her and faced her own journey to do so. I don't know, I really don't know, but there's a reason somewhere, I can feel it.

Animation

The animation in this movie is about what you'd expect for a straight-to-video film, not amazing but above average compared to others like it, and those others typically came out in the 2000s whereas this came out in 1998. It's not bad, but not mind-blowing and people would turn the other cheek given this is riding off of a movie best known for its animation.

Final Thoughts

A lot of people really hate this movie, and for a time I did too and I made a review to that effect. But the fact that even to this day people are still complaining about this movie and bringing nothing new most of the time it comes down to the same thing... it's getting old, and maybe this movie isn't as bad as Nostalgia Critic made it out to be.

The Nostalgia Critic had a negative impact on movie reviews, you can owe the reputations of certain films to him. For instance Garbage Pail Kids was more relatively obscure until he did a review and got more people to talk about it. The same effect occurred here as well evidentially as few could do anything more than just echo what Nostalgia Critic said in the name of a movie, of all things.

Once you take that away, you're left with a movie that, yes, isn't great but is far from the worst movie of all time, let alone one of the worst sequels. I'm being blunt here, because after seeing the same reviews multiple times and looking more into the movie, things just don't add up. Is this really that bad, or are we just regurgitating what we heard before with no variation? Only credit I can give to this is that most of the time they don't throw Don Bluth into the discussion, and since this movie came out as he was still alive there goes that go-to.

There's more to a movie than what you hear from the reviewer of the week, and people need to have the confidence to go against the grain if there is something that is getting missed. High risk, high reward.