Shrek (console game) Review

They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Insanity is some neck-bearded pedo-stached talking about a Shrek game, hoping to get it right but will probably make it a tradition to talk about it over and over again.

I have issues.

First time I talked about it, it was back before I got the gist of properly reviewing stuff. Second time, I did it better and I could've left it off there. However, ever since I got back into writing reviews, I've noticed something. When it comes to talking about video games, I'm honestly at my best there. I find myself going into the essential facets there more than a TV show or movie, where I give the bare minimum. Maybe this could be the last time I talk about this game.

The few times I talked about this game, I mainly focused on the GameCube version. I kinda feel disappointed because I feel I was more dismissive than I should've been. So, third time's the charm.

History

Shrek came out about eight months after the movie for the XBOX. Given that it's a license, there're two candidates who would've sunk their teeth into it, THQ and Activision, the latter especially, the more money they could get the better, but no, none of them got it, well the latter got it a few years later, but until then, the publisher choice still surprises me.

The game, and most other Shrek games prior to those for the second installment, was handled by TDK Mediactive, a company on a far lower tier than Activision on their licensed front. You may think I'm being harsh, but let me put this into perspective. TDK is essentially a scavenger, going after properties that no other publisher cared for. To be fair, a lot of their games aren't horrible, at best they're forgettable or are more tolerable than later installments.

For example, they did a game based on Casper: The Friendly Ghost that's surprisingly better than other Casper games (and ironically a higher point for its developer who worked on another TDK game later on down the road- Aquaman, they did Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis), though overall it's nothing to write home about. They also did Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade, by the same studio that did Payday and the Chronicles of Riddick games.

Yeah, I can't call TDK the worst publisher, especially nowadays. At least they didn't live long enough to succumb to the unholy on-disc DLC or loot box craze.

Onto the developer. During the logo crawl, you see the logo for DICE. Wait a minute, DICE? Battlefront DICE? EA testicle DICE? At first glance this is just DICE before they found what they were good at, but no, this is not the DICE you're thinking of. The DICE behind this game is actually a new identity for a Canadian game developer, Sandbox Studios. Sandbox primarily worked on licensed games and were acquired by DICE in 2001. They continued to produce licensed games under the DICE moniker until 2006. So if you're looking for more shit to fling at DICE, don't go to their licensed games, because you'd literally be poking a dead horse.

Now referring back to the eight month after tidbit, wait, that would mean that this game was released in November of 2001, and if it was released on the XBOX... Yep, Shrek was actually a launch title for the XBOX when it came out that year. I don't see the merit in releasing a licensed game as a launch title but to each their own. The game came and went, didn't get any glowing praise, but that certainly didn't hamper the publisher who made Shrek games that were somehow worse than this one. DICE Canada got the memo to back off from Shrek, and the latest I've heard from them was their work on a Land Before Time game for the PlayStation, which got released in 2002 fyi. They also did a Game Boy Advance port of a Barbie game for the PC, and trust me, just take the acknowledgment of its existence, that's all I'm willing to give to it.

Plot

Before I begin, I'd like to note that this doesn't follow the plot of the movie. At all. It's said to just be a continuation from the movie with Shrek trying to seal his hero status to the fairly tale inhabitants.

Princess Fiona is kidnapped by an evil wizard, Merlin. We don't see this occur, for better or worse, and instead everything is revealed by the Magic Mirror, who sadly is the most entertaining character in the game. The only thing preventing Shrek from taking Merlin head on is the latter enveloping the land around his domain in dark fog. The only way to clear it is by doing a number of good deeds, or as you'll soon find out, do numerous objectives until the next area is revealed and continue until you get to Merlin's palace.

Gameplay

Shrek is a 3D explorative game. Of your abilities you could run, jump, punch wall jump grab and throw, belch and fart, and yes, the last two are true. The mechanic behind this is weird, and it only gets more awkward by another version I'm going to bring up soon. I give the game points for giving Shrek abilities that fit the character... what you expect me to claim that these are bad? It would be bad if you were forced to recognize the control layout yourself, but they do give you a tutorial, a mandatory one but a tutorial nonetheless. There's also a flame power up for the belch option, just need a chili pepper to get it going for a short amount of time.

Once you're shown the ropes, you could explore the rest of the game, one world at a time though. In each world you're given six deeds to accomplish, though two of them are verbatim and exist to provide a little extra challenge, or as I'd like to call it, padding. These deeds can only be completed one at a time; once one is completed, the other shall begin.

The land where the maternal goose resides.

You start out in Mother Goose Land. Among your good deeds here are returning sheep to a coral, while contending with a Scottish wolf who's using them for soccer practice. Basically just keep the wolf out of the picture long enough to get all five sheep into the coral. If you get the wolf out of the coral and into the village, the guards will beat the wolf up. The next good deed is a half-assed redo of the previous one, where you have to get the great gander's children, who're sentient eggs, into his nest while avoiding Humpty Dumpty, who has become highly bitter over the years. Hey guy, if I had my name ran in the mud for appearing in Aladdin and the Adventure of All Time I'd be hating life too.

The next one is even more simple. All you have to do is fart on a cow. Seriously. But here's the catch. The cow only shows up at night, so you gotta punch the clock in the village, while contending with a 40 second time limit. You have to do the clock punching business in the final deed here, where you have to awaken the guards. There're three of them, and two are right near one another.

Please apply what I say about the next two missions for the other levels, because they pop up in those too.

Verbatim mission number one: You'll find numerous fairies flying around the level. Catch them to progress but bear in mind, these guys won't stay still, and you will have a hard time keeping up and catching them. Just keep their pattern in mind and once you find out what direction they'll go, catch them and repeat that five more times.

Verbatim mission number two: Six golden easter eggs are scattered across the level, often in spots that are tricky to reach. Nothing a little common sense and experience can't cure. This should've been before the fairy mission, in spite of the egg placement I could at least know that I could get the egg once I reach it. Only other thing I could say about this is that I have some insight on Magic Mirror's child raising etiquette.

The Crypt that happens to be creepy.

To start, you have to fart on witches and punch them. A scandal would arise from this had it been released anytime during 2015, either that or it'd cost Shrek his entire YouTube channel. Next, you have to clear bats out of the crypt, i.e. find and touch the areas the bats are resting. The next challenge, to be fair, is actually a challenge. You need to gather skeletons, one at a time mind you, and bring them to a single area. You like that? Because you have to do a similar thing one mission later, where you have to round up baby spiders, and fair warning to arachnophobiacs, there's a big ass spider hidden in the corner, that's where you need to go to bring the babies back.

I'd like to take this time to bring up one aspect of the enemy mechanic in this game. You can't kill anyone in this game. At best you could knock them unconscious but they'd wake right back up a few seconds later. First up, you must have very little faith in your target audience if you intend to cover up enemy deaths. Second, given that there're levels where you have to carry over enemies to a certain area, you're going to go through some serious frustration. Taking the waking up after a few seconds tidbit into account, if you're carrying an enemy when they wake up, they'll hurt you. Remember, you have to bring enemies to a certain area, usually one that requires platforming, and you could potentially lose the guy after they wake up.

Recreational area that's part of the confectionary industry.

Admittedly, things pick up challenge wise at this point. To start, you have to punch five factory whistles, while contending with guards who try to turn them back on. Given the amount present, yeah, that's gonna be a challenge, and challenge is a good thing. They switch things up a bit, but ironically take a few steps back to do so. Next is a fighting challenge. All you gotta do is knock your opponent out of the ring three times without stepping out of the ring yourself. Only hinderance besides your opponent fighting back is a tiny doppelgänger who could make or break your experience.

The next mission is a reprise of the first, where you need to kill the power on a factory machine so a factory foreman could rescue an employee who fell into it, but you gotta prevent the workers from starting it again. I don't know if it's because of ignorance, or the fact that these workers hate that other worker to the point they're willing to have him mutilated to death. This should constitute for a bulk of the good deeds here, a life is on the line. Finally, if you play this level, you're bound to have encountered one of these...

Esch.

We go from saving someone's life to endangering four others. What's the damage here? Oh nothing, just tossing them into cement tubes, and given the implicative tone of the foreman, I doubt he just wants to teach them a lesson, as in a sensible lesson. But I dunno, maybe he's doing them a favor, they got faces not even their nearsighted grandmothers would pay a mercy compliment to.

This ain't the Prince Charming you're thinking of, and it's not his castle either.

First up, farting and blowing those farts up near the jesters to launch them into the air, all for the amusement of a king who's secretly taking in the gas aspect. Next you have to, quite literally, kick Prince Charming's ass all the way upstairs to his wife. I'd call her a bitch, but I have standards. After that, you have to catch weed rats and burn them, either with a chili pepper power up or by taking them to a nearby torch. Finally, you get to do some law breaking, where you free prisoners and kick them out of a nearby window, near as in right in the area you free the prisoners. What have they done? Maybe it's for the best we don't know.

That ain't molasses in those sewers.

Basically a continuation of an earlier level, namely due to the return of our ugly friend in that image above. The missions are ironically more straightforward, too bad the area itself is so hard to go through it won't even matter. The area is full of platforms, and you have to do a lot of hiking to get anywhere.

To start, you have to shut off the valves. Some of which are right over the end of a platform, so you have to hit it in just the right area, otherwise you'll simply fall and have to go right back up to try again. Next you have to find and melt various ice cream guards. Only difficulty here is trying to find a chili pepper and use it before it wears off. Next you have to round up engineers and bring them to their station. On one hand, these guys won't hurt you if you carry them. On the other hand, if you pick them up once, they'll run from you, and given how most of the area is high up and crowded, this'll be much harder than it looks.

Interestingly, it closes off on a boss battle, or something that masquerades as one. The boss of the hour, the Ice Queen, can be defeated by self-ignited explosions, just get the chili pepper, fart, blow up the fart and repeat that two more times after and you win.

This week on FFANN, a misogynistic racist green man attacks a poor woman who did absolutely nothing whatsoever. Also Donald Trump.

Castle where a mythical giant lizard who's red resides.

To start, you need to ignite five fires. These are around a giant castle, where numerous nights are waiting to pelt arrows (arrows with suction cups I might add). But hey there's good news, if you fart and their arrows hit you, it could ignite the gas and light the fire. Up next, you have to lure three baby dragons into kiddie pools to stop them from breathing fire. You need to get a knight to lure them to the pools, and fortunately, they don't hurt you. Oh, and these dragons are apparently part canine.

Remember the kiddie pool I mentioned? That plays into this next mission. You need to go to the bottom of a dried up moat and retrieve the fishes that're down below. Instinctively, fishes slide out of your hands, and the developers definitely got that down. This is mostly just annoying. At this point, we learn that the dancing cow from Mother Goose Land has developed a fart fetish, because she's back for another round. This time you get to venture into the castle on the other side, but no challenge is too great for one who really wants to fart on someone to fulfill a good deed.

Merlin's Dark Tower Fortress of Pure Evil (seriously)

It's just a matter of making it to the end... to fight the boss. To do so, you have to locate a walking barrel of TNT and hope a flaming arrow hits it when you have it near a locked door. The final fight revolves around finding Merlin, who switches places every now and again, and beat the crap out of him. I'm sorta glad that this boss fight is so straight-forward. Why? Your reward ladies and gentlemen: 

Do you feel like a hero? By the way, this is not part of a cutscene, this still image is your reward.

Graphics

I'd be firm, but when you take into account that this was among the first titles for a new console, along with the fact that the capabilities of this system haven't been fully disclosed to developers, along with the fact that this company's work is rooted with PlayStation and PC games... I can't complain about too much here, I don't even have that much to complain about. The models are iffy, they're just a few hairs above something you find in a late era PlayStation game. I will say Shrek looks better than Jimmy Neutron in the GameCube/PS2 version of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, and I love you enough to not show you what he looks like there. Apparently the newer characters were designed by Spawn created Todd MacFarlane. Either Todd's been kicking back in the creativity department or DICE Canada had someone working for them with that name.

I think they poured more time and resources into the overall design. The backgrounds are well detailed, they're Shrek-Reminiscent I guess, but hey, they did stick in my head. But that's nothing compared to this. Ever heard of deferred shading? Basically it's a process that helps produce shadows in video games. Apparently this was one of the first games to make use of the process. Given that the XBOX was leagues ahead of the PS2 and GameCube in terms of graphical specs, it's not only plausible that this was one of the first to use the process, but in a way, this makes the game a worthy launch title, because it demonstrates what the system is capable of. Not bad for an licensed game developer, from Canada, and not Vancouver but Ontario.

Music

It's a cardinal rule of most bad video games, the music is the best thing about it. Here, while it's moderately memorable at best, it does fit the levels quite nicely.

Overall

Shrek isn't the worst licensed game ever, and certainly not the worst in the Shrek series. Its banal simplicity is its downfall, sure kids would enjoy it, but they'd tire of it before long. Compared to the publisher and developers other works, it's one of their better offerings, even if they underestimate what their target demographic could handle. I dunno I give it a pass.

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Oh that's right, Shrek Extra Large.

While Shrek wasn't a major critical success, I take it it sold fairly well because less than a year later it received a GameCube port. I don't mean a straight up port by the way, it's an expansion, with two additional levels, cutscenes and a retelling of the main story. How much better is this game? It actually scored worse reviews than the XBOX version, except for GameInformer who gave it one point higher than they did with the XBOX version. Okay, let's see what the damage is.

The Sting

The original intro is docked for a storybook motif. It's okay, but not as exciting as the XBOX version. It is more in tone with the movie, but we've established that it goes for an entirely different premise altogether.

The New Levels, and the jam in between.

To sell on the Extra Large aspect, we have two new levels. Both also include the Evil Fairy and Easter Egg tidbits. One notable aspect is that you could complete any of the good deeds in whatever order you choose, and your progress is saved so you don't have to worry about not getting every egg and fairy before you complete the major missions first.

There're also cutscenes scattered throughout the levels. I should've called this notable, but they're just filler, these appear at the beginning and end of every level, I'm fine with that, but there're ones that appear in the middle of every level, adding little that you wouldn't find out just by paying attention to what occurs in the level, or referring to the assignment description in the menu. There're also cutscenes that occur when you activate a bridge in one level, fall off a mountain and walk back up (as in fading to the last few seconds of the walk), once you see these, you'd be hankering for the XBOX version. Somehow the cutscenes make the game look even worse, like they were just demos tacked on out of laziness.

Not to mention, they've really downgraded the loading screens. They went from a custom loading bug to just showing a picture of the level.

The Forest that happens to be Enchanted.

It's a hodgepodge of fairy tale characters, move over MCU, you've got another unironic crossover to contend with. Little Red Ridinghood, Hansel and Gretel, the Merry Men might have some connection. The fair abundance of random fairy tale characters made sense in Mother Goose Land, here, this is just a glorified forrest. Seems the big bad wolf had the right idea to stay out of there.

Wanna know something sad? This game technically only has two missions. Half of them revolve around finding a basket for Red, which is locked behind a vault door, then there's the matter of finding the candy at the end. The only other mission involves guiding Hansel and Gretel to the other side of a river to get to a gingerbread house, but even then that gets you an onion that could give you a grander boom for the door mission.

Overall, this just feels like a mission that they intended to leave out, but to capitalize on how Extra Large the GameCube version would be, threw it in because they wanted it out of their hair as soon as possible.

A Mountain that seems to be Lonely

Like the previous stage, it's more or less linear, with each objective leading to the accomplishment of a grander one. First, you need to find a four leaf clover for a leprechaun, then you need to free a mine cart from a block of ice, then you need to ride gusts of wind to get to a lone platform to retrieve a pot of gold, which you have to fight a team of garden gnomes that are harassing a condor's babies to get it back after the condor takes it.

Differences in existing levels.

Not sure why, but a lot of the already existing levels in this game had their premises changed. For one, the generator mission in Sweetsville has been switched, no longer is it about keeping the machine off for enough time to save a worker's life, but it's to turn it on and keep it on while the workers try to shut it off. Maybe this is a cover story they made up because they tried to kill the guy in the machinery. In Prince Charming's castle, they got rid of the weed rat mission and instead used one dedicated to locking up the prison guard. This could've been a lie made up by the prisoners for sympathy. Plus, after the crypt, which has a swapped level where you need to bring the spiders to the mother who now rests inside the crypt, you could retrieve magic armor. Also, after the red dragon level you get a dragon fire power-up which helps plenty in the final zone.

New Abilities

Before I forget, I'd like to point out that due to the GameCube controller having less buttons than the XBOX controller, the fart and belch abilities have been mapped to the same button. You have to hold down the R button slightly to fart, and hold down the button to breathe fire.

As for the new abilities, you have a super punch, where you hold down the punch button for a bit and release it to knock out your enemies faster. There's also a slam move which could buy you some time when multiple enemies are present. These come as you go on, guess I can't fault the game for this since it rewards you for making progress, then again, what use do you have for these powers when you could get by just fine without them?

Graphics

Due to having weaker hardware and small discs which cut down on storage, some sacrifices had to be made, and man does it show. What? You want me to show you?

XBOX version,

GameCube version, and the low resolution won't help matters.

Some things to note are the bleak looking areas, the lack of detail on most artifacts, among other victims of a port from one system to an inferior other. Shrek looks noticeably worse here than on the XBOX version, but I want to save you the trouble.

Ending

You'd think that the XBOX version outperforms the GameCube version on all fronts, right? Well, they had an actual ending for this version, revealing that the palace collapsed and Merlin is now within Shrek and Fiona's custody. Not spectacular, but it's a more fitting end than what the XBOX gave us.

Overall Deus

Basically it sucks, and if this came first, TDK and DICE Canada would've been better off going dark, you can't recover from something like this. How much worse could it get?

Glitches

As to be expected with a low quality port, we've got plenty of glitches to talk about. These can be found if you activate the cheats, namely those that give you infinite gas and no limit on your fire breath. Particularly applying to Mother Goose Land and Prince Charming's castle, you could leap over the game's boundaries and walk along the background, but watch out, if you fall, you'll wind up in a dungeon fashioned after a GameCube and with no escape.

Seriously.

For more evidence, refer to here: 

Nobody knows the exact reasoning behind this, the only theory I could find, at least going by the video above, is that this was a test stage locked somewhere in the game's code, and that by falling out of bounds we disrupt the code and wind up in it. Best I could say. But holy shit that's some fine detail on the inside.

Overall, once and for all

Shrek and Shrek Extra Large represent two different outcomes. Both were made to capitalize on a movie, one turned out to be serviceable as well as an aid in showcasing what the XBOX was capable of. The other is just a cheap cash grab where if you just look at it you could tell how rushed it is. Somehow I knew I was never done talking about this game, may this be the end of it.

Scooby-Doo: Mystery Mayhem review

Last time I talked about a Scooby-Doo game that helped breath new life into Scooby-Doo video games. Now I'm going to set out and talk about a game I intended to discuss prior, and to put my new list to good use.

History

A lot of you may have played numerous licensed games as a kid. Some of you may have noticed a recurring element to each, well, other than mediocrity and moderate satisfaction. A dot with two swooshes, and the ambiguous name "A2M", who if you didn't know is the developer behind this game. Artificial Mind and Movement (A2M's full name) was a prominent developer of licensed titles in the early to mid 2000s. They covered everything from consoles to handheld systems. If you needed a tie-in game to go with your show, you could count on these guys. They also did Scaler and Jersey Devil, games for all intents and purposes that're better than a bulk of their licensed games.

But on those, you may recognize them as the developer of Ed, Edd n' Eddy: The Mis-Edventures, a game many enjoy mainly for the novelty of it being Ed, Edd n' Eddy-related. Okay it was a pretty good game, real pity that I'm no longer a fan of the show. So, have they gone belly up? Well, you could find plenty of new titles from them under the Behaviour Interactive moniker, ironically their original identity. Did you know that they changed their name because A2M was a sexual euphemism?  Ass to mouth.

As Behaviour Interactive, they're best known for fucking up Spongebob Squarepants video games. Ironically, while Behaviour fucked up what Heavy Iron Studios helped to create, Behaviour actually continued Heavy Iron's spirit in the next Scooby-Doo game. This may be proof of alternate universes.

It's important to note that this originally came out on Game Boy Advance in 2003, with the home console versions coming out the following year. I want to focus on the latter because obviously that's what I played.

Premise (preface)

Rather than go with a single premise with the entire game built around that, we have five different scenarios that ultimately mend together for one single plot line. They're fairly subtle about the connections here, so each feels fairly independent from one another. As a result, I plan on discussing the plots for all five scenarios after I talk about the gameplay, because by then it'll all come together.

Gameplay

You'd think A2M would go for a rehash of the previous Scooby-Doo game, and you'd be wrong. This time, they go for a team dynamic where you get to play as Scooby and Shaggy simultaneously. The team dynamic is a little half-assed though. While there are obstacles that only Scooby could cross, like crawlspaces, there isn't anything Shaggy can't do that Scooby could also do. On the other hand, you sometimes need both guys to progress to new areas, this is usually done so you can't go to places you're not supposed to go to yet.

This game takes away your ability to jump, but fear not, you could hike up certain areas and activate switches to open up platforms, move platforms to certain areas or give yourself access to ladders, through switch activation of course. There's a problem solving element here, but once you get the basics down, plus you take note of the various clues littered around the levels, it'll be less about figuring stuff out for the sake of doing it, and more for figuring it out to get the game done faster.

Okay, where are we for enemies? Well, unlike Night of 100 Frights where we got to see many familiar faces, we get some new ones in the form of three variations of ghosts, zombies, shadows (another ghost variant), mummies, poltergeists, demonic twisters (seriously) and ghosts that are on fire. Oh how could we curb these enemies? Ladies and gentlemen, our gimmick.

In the first episode (what the game refers to as levels), Shaggy and Scooby come across the Tome of Doom, a book that captures ghosts. How does this work? After powering up the book, you open it near a ghost and you have to tap a designated button until the ghosts' health is depleted. This could usually take two rounds, the highest being three on standard enemies. There's a catch to this, for a while, there're some enemies you can't capture because you don't have the right page for them. These either come after a certain point or the pages appear somewhere into the level. If you fail to find the right page, you won't be able to capture this enemy. Luckily, these pages are easy to find, and they wouldn't make it so you'd get stuck. I think I only ran into one page that's essentially optional, and only exists so you could get a bonus item.

And now the bonuses. For each level, you could find five clues and five sandwich ingredients. The first five actually attempt to have some kind of connection to the level, with each cluing you in on what's happening. Sometimes the fifth clue comes automatically during a cutscene. These are typically easy to find if you're willing to explore the levels, though at least two are tricky, one in getting, the other in finding. You could run these by Velma so you could get more info, but other than that you just need to collect them all. Your reward is unlocking concept art. Call it a bummer, but at least you don't have to grind for hours to get every Scooby-Snack just to get a "You did it!" screen.

As for the sandwich ingredients, they're a bit harder to find. You have to do some problem solving to get to most of these, though you may find yourself going to more obscure areas to find them as well. To give you an idea on the more ridiculous ones.

• One is located in a mine cart ride in the third episode. When you enter it the first time the cart section immediately begins and you believe that you'd set it off again if you come in the same way. But no, it just leads you to the entrance where a piece of ham awaits you.
• There's one where you need a certain amount of nuggets to get a piece of cheese from a vending machine.
• You have to hit a certain number of switches in one section of the fifth level, but not all of them so you could retrieve a piece of bacon from behind a force field.
• You have to capture a certain number of ghosts in the final boss to get an onion.
• You have to get every single enemy in the first episode to get a piece of lettuce.
• You have to remember to backtrack to an early part of one section of the second episode to find another piece of cheese.

Talk about problem solving. Anyway, a much grander reward exists if you find five ingredients in each level, and that's a mini game. Already this game has much better rewards for doing everything 100% than Night of 100 Frights.

There's also a costume dynamic which is rendered null since you could easily run past spooks. I only found one level where they were useful, and that was for sneaking past guards, and one instance where you need to get a key card from an enemy.

Scooby snacks constitute as health here, individual snacks giving you moderate recovery, while boxes give you a full heal, lose enough health and you actually have an opportunity to avoid losing the level. You begin running, just keep them away from other spooks long enough and you have a chance to recover some health. Where are we on checkpoints? Well, they exist in save zones. You actually have to go through the trouble of saving your game just to get a checkpoint. Damn.

Plot

We have five episodes that seem to hold no connection until the end, where our enemies are in line with the main antagonist.

Episode One: The Haunting of Hambridge

The Scooby-Doo gang go to investigate what seems like a classic mystery at the library of Velma's alma matter, but are bombarded by the aforementioned spooks. We get used to the character dynamic between Shaggy and Scooby and are ultimately acquainted with the kind of gameplay we'll encounter soon on. You tackle your first boss, Walter Peabody who has donned a hokey sheet ghost costume. To beat him you need to find Shaggy after both he and Scooby get separated and you need to capture the other ghosts. Don't ask, this is how it works.

Episode 2: Mayhem at the Movies

Next you go to the Milton Brothers studio, where the Red Knight is causing trouble for the staff, and ultimately the aforementioned brothers. The first level was kinda lacking, just the library and the lower cellars, then again, that's what all libraries are like. Here, they actually follow the movie studio aesthetic quite well. We get to go backstage and venture through sets, including space, a graveyard with an ensuing crypt, ancient Egypt, a ship for a little bit but you get to encounter the suspended bridges for the stage lighting and ancient Rome. However, these are usually done within one stage and exist for aesthetics. But it could be worse. One interesting aspect is that they throw in a George Meiles reference.

Do you know your movies?

One interesting aspect is that there're pseudo-booby traps, namely in the space and graveyard levels. If you get close to certain things, they can scare you and make you lose your health.

When you get to the right knight, it's just a matter of avoiding him until a trap is fully set up. Remember, guy in a mask.

Episode III: Weird Wild West

At a dude ranch, it's just a matter of making it around. Shaggy and Scooby have an eat-off, a playable one at that. This one is inconsequential, just complete it, doesn't matter who wins or loses no matter who you play as. The added baggage makes Shaggy fall through the floor and you have to... go upstairs and in a half-hearted node to the door gag in Scooby-Doo cartoons, you have to pick the right door several times to progress to the other side, just so you could get into the basement. In the basement, you get a lantern and an obligation to collect jack-lanterns, that's what they look like, to preserve light, all while finding Shaggy. Once you do, you venture out through a different door and wind up in the saloon.

There's a puzzle section involving a piano, and later on you have to deal with a safe. For the piano, you need to set the right notes on three screens, with three clues littered throughout the area. You need this to get a key. Meanwhile, you find Fred locked in jail and you need to get soap to push a barricade blocking a hole. Once inside you need a saw to get to the other side and claim a key. By the way, Fred possesses a key as well. These are needed to get into the bank, where you need to get a shovel to dig out the entry way to a mine cart ride. Oh yeah, the mine cart.

Shaggy and Scooby wind up on the ride and you have to traverse through the entire thing while getting as many gold nuggets as you can. If you're a completionist, this will become especially daunting because you need a certain amount to get a piece of cheese from a vending machine so you could unlock a mini game. Not to mention, you need to go a certain way to find a clue to complete that section, all while avoiding obstacles. With a lot of these, it takes one hit to kill your progress.

It was after that that I became stuck on this game. I missed a clue for opening the safe and I became stuck. This is on the chalkboard in the school for the record. You need to open the safe to get the page to attack the set of monsters present in the town. After that you get to your first true boss fight. You go after numerous dust devils while avoiding flying debris from a carousel. Do it enough times and you get to face the major dust devil, catch him, bada bing bada boom, next episode.

Episode 4: Bad Juju in the Bayou

It starts off with Scooby and Shaggy attempting to get to a pot of gumbo, and the intense methods used to do so. To get to it, they attempt to activate a fountain, but the water isn't activated yet. You traverse through an open pipe in the pump house to get the flow going, where you get the gimmick for this level, swimming gear. Of this portion, you encounter alligators, more relentless than you think, and later boaters with ray guns, more on that later. After you get the water going, you need to connect the pipes, and this is easier said than done. You need to do a meter puzzle where you have to get the water level to be a certain height, push certain pipes to certain areas and make sure you completed it all before you head out because you'll find yourself cornered and need to undo some progress just to get back out.

After getting to the gumbo, Shaggy falls from a balcony and due to getting covered in mud, is mistaken for a zombie, our enemies of the hour. Scooby teams up with Billy Bob to help find him. Scooby traverses through the woods, avoiding army guys with ray guns, and these guys you can't attack, sometimes you have to take a hit. Soon you get to the base and you need to keep these guys away from Billy Bob until he frees Shaggy. This leads to a new variation on the mine cart level. Motorcycle.

Like the mine cart, you avoid obstacles, but now there's the need to manually accelerate. Adding to this is collectibles you need to get that could only be collected with precise jumps. It'd feel very satisfying once you get them. It then goes to the boss, where you have to capture zombies, later facing a much bigger one, and this fucker won't stay still, so just go back to Velma if you're running low on health and fight the big zombie until it's all over.

Episode five: Hi-Tech Terror

The final stretch. Here, the game gives you its attempt at stealth. You try to avoid guards while venturing through unauthorized territories. This is where the disguise gimmick works the best. Just go through the areas until you reach the elevator, and the stealth mechanic becomes nothing more than a footnote. They switch to more ray gun wielding enemies, along with some feeble attempts at variety, i.e., getting to control a robot just to turn valves and activate a switch to shut off steam and get access to doors.

Things get a bit interesting again when Shaggy and Scooby find their friends have been brainwashed by our ultimate antagonist, Selena Drake. Apparently the people the gang faced that turned out to have bad intentions are aligned to her. In this part, you just have to shut off the machine controlling them, while avoiding their blasts.

After this, you have to capture more ghosts, but you won't get the page to capture these kind, the fire ghosts. Here, you have to lure them to active sprinklers and then capture them. Do this until you make it to the end, where you face off against the grand final fire ghost. You just need to activate four sprinklers to usurp power from the ghost. But one more phase occurs and it's just a general capture, not impressed.

The mini games, if you're curious, go like this.

• A mini game where you trap the first boss you encounter in a certain area.
• One where you have to capture every ghost present.
• Variations on the mine cart and the mini bike sections.
• Another trapping game.

A for effort, a NUS for the overall execution.

Music

The music is standard, nothing special. It does fit the theme of the levels nicely, and trust me, that's the best compliment I could give.

Graphics

It's no surprise that the graphics look better than the ones in Night of 100 Frights. But buy and large, the graphics aren't that impressive here. They fit the Scooby-Doo series well, I'll give it that, but it doesn't pop out like Night of 100 Frights did, referring to the backgrounds mainly.

Overall

It's just a standard licensed game. It's not terrible by any means, especially when compared to A2M's SpongeBob efforts. I'll give them this, they tried to do something new, and for the most part they did it well. I'm willing to call it a worthy Scooby-Doo game, I think you'd definitely find more enjoyment out of this than Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase. Both the game and the movie. Bite me.

Scooby Doo Night of 100 Frights review

I was originally going to make a standalone review of Scooby Doo Mystery Mayhem, but since I played both that and this, I figured it'd be fair to talk about both (in separate intervals of course) and in the proper order.

History

We've all know about Scooby-Doo. We've either seen it, heard of it or seen some merchandise for it. It requires no introduction, especially since it has diverged every few years. Scooby-Doo has always had a rough evolution, going from a formulaic monster of the week format with the same outcome, to that along with a crossover aspect with celebrities and other cartoon characters, to a plethora of the first mixed with Scrappy Doo, to some unmentionables, to proof that good direct-to-video animated movies can be done, to the live action movies which I refuse to believe are as bad as people say they are, bite me, back to direct-to-video animated films that occasionally aired on Cartoon Network that's at a bar set by Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase, to a modernized retelling of the first series, to whatever the fuck KidsWB! aired, to a dark version that thankfully doesn't go for a tacky anime motif, and now they're tangling with the WWF in direct-to-video format... and people give The Simpsons shit for being on for so long.

Ironically, this crazy evolution kinda applies to the various video games released since the late-80s. It started out simple (complex in concept, going by the publisher's hopes, simple in overall execution) with a game for numerous home computers. By the 16-bit era, developers became more split on what to do with the games, evident by how there's one Scooby-Doo game, but of two different variants. Basically, there was an SNES game that acted like a side-scroller, while the Genesis received a point and click title. Personally, I like the latter for attempting to keep with the spirit of the mystery element of the core series. There was also another PC game released in the late-90s, but all I know about that is that its developer worked on a Crayola game I played as a kid.

It was when they moved on to fifth-generation consoles that the Scooby-Doo games began to falter. To put it into perspective, the N64 version of Classic Creep Capers was deemed a disappointment, while the Game Boy Color version received better overall reviews. Likewise, Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase can be considered little more than a tie-in to a direct-to-video movie of all things, and of all the four movies, they went for the worst possible one.

But not all hope was lost. In 2002, before they created what's considered to be one of the best Nickelodeon games of all time, Heavy Iron Studios threw their hat into the ring and decided to make a glorified tribute to the cartoon. What's interesting to note is that this was Heavy Iron's second attempt at a video game, their first being an Evil Dead game from 2000.

It started off simple. THQ had the license to the Scooby-Doo series since 2000, and with Heavy Iron being a wholly owned subsidiary, it was a matter of laying the idea down. I wouldn't put it past THQ for them to give their developers creative freedom, because Heavy Iron went all out with this game.

Part of a recreated intro.

To start with, they wanted to keep the spirit present in the original cartoon. They recreated the classic intro, featured music that wouldn't sound out of place in the cartoon (more on that soon), those weird laugh tracks every now and again and for good measure, Don Knotts, who when you don't talk to him, offers colorful commentary.

No kidding.

So we have a faithful adaptation of Scooby-Doo so what? The overall quality is still up in the air.

Premise

It's the typical Scooby-Doo, go to a mysterious location, find out about a ghost and later unmasking them schtick. Couldn't go without that. But there's a twist. Apparently they're facing the return of various old enemies, all abiding to the Mastermind, and for good measure he's voiced by Tim Curry.

And here he is.

Fred, Daphne and Velma set out to look for clues, leaving Shaggy and Scooby on their own, par the course. Only this time, Shaggy winds up disappearing as well, cluing us in to the fates of the other three.

Gameplay

Like many sixth-generation games at the time, this is a 3D platform. You play as Scooby-Doo and traverse through three different areas, the manor, the hedge maze and the fishing village. You also have the playground which serves as a basic tutorial for what you can do and what you'll encounter throughout the game. All three are home to a wide array of levels, but the order you do them in isn't important, especially since at some point you'll run into dead ends.

To combat an otherwise simple platformer, there'll be areas that'll halt your progress. These are in the form of "snack gates", where you need a certain number of Scooby Snacks (this game's currency) to open it. There're also points where you need a special ability to progress, that's where the inventions come in. Throughout the game, you'll encounter different inventions, some of which you'll get after defeating a boss, others you could find scattered throughout the game, and believe me, you'll need these. Among the inventions are:

• Springs: You start out with a single jump, but when you get these you could perform a double jump.
• Shovel: You'll find some weirdly placed flowers throughout the game. If you have the shovel you could dig them up and occasionally find health, Scooby snacks or the occasional piece of ammo for your later abilities.
• Helmet: Dash attack. Used to break through spiderwebs, crates, anything else that seems breakable. It's also necessary to tackle larger enemies and hit most switches.
• Lampshade and slippers: Used to sneak by enemies. I don't recall the extent, but I believe that this is only effective if you stand still.
• Armor: Now you could sneak past enemies more effectively.
• Slam: A ground pound. This is another method to attack enemies, and mandatory to break through floor barricades and hit switches. Until the upgrade, you could only do damage from above the enemy, this could also give you an extra boost if you're close enough to a platform.
• Super slam: Now you could slam the ground in front of the enemy to stun them. Ideal to get out of a situation where you're overwhelmed by your enemies.
• Plunger: Allows you to climb up sloped surfaces you'd normally slip down from.
• Gum shooter: Allows you to trap enemies. You could even bounce off their heads.
• Galoshes: Tar is littered across most of the levels, and it could prevent you from jumping. With this invention, you could move and jump regularly.
• Soap box: Another projectile weapon. Now you could use enemies as platforms.
• Umbrella: Used to glide over long distances and ride air currents.

These may seem excessive, but as you go on you'll find yourself relying on these items. It's especially necessary since there're areas you encounter early on that you can't get to without these items, and these inventions can either only be obtained after fighting a boss or are in a level you can't get to yet. Right off the bat, this increases the game's replay value, it's always fun going back to areas you've missed.

There's a major sense of progression in each area. In the Manor, you actually get to explore every facet of the manor from the hallways to the tower to the attic, even the balconies. In the hedge maze, you start there, encounter a greenhouse, the mountains, the cliffside, the caves before it goes into a graveyard and crypt. Damn, that's some progression. Ultimately, the Fishing Village has the most progression, it's there you travel to find the last major boss. You go through the docks, a cannery, a cave, the shipwrecks, right down to more caves and secret passageways before you find a dungeon, and ultimately a secret laboratory which'll lead you right to the Mastermind. Quite an adventure, but for a licensed game, how could you go wrong?

Among the enemies you'll face throughout the game, you'll encounter the classic Scooby-Doo rogues gallery, the Wolf Man, the Zombie, the Witch, Captain Moody, the Funland Robot, the Ghost Diver, the Headless Spectre, the Sea Monster, the Gargoyle, to name a few, and you also get to encounter some small fry such as rats, crabs, bats, spiders and flying fish.

You encounter three mini bosses followed by a final one. In Mystic Manor, you encounter the Black Knight. It's appropriate you start here since this was the first enemy Mystery Inc. ever encountered. You have four switches to choose from, and you need to hit the one the Black Knight is standing by. Do this four times and you win, but watch out, you also have to put up with a raincloud and the witch. If this were an endgame type story, it would've been interesting to have the Black Knight be the final enemy, go full circle, be provocative, but that's just me, this is fine enough as is.

Next is the Green Ghost, honestly one of the more questionable choices when you take into account that there were multiple versions of this in its one appearance. You encounter him in the Hedge Maze area, just hit the right switch when the ghost is above the coffin behind it and you're set. Interestingly, the description they give for the green ghost is the one used for an enemy on A Pup Named Scooby Doo.

What the game uses.

What they're talking about.

And you thought I wouldn't notice. Tsk tsk.

You then hit a crossroad which'll either put you on the path to the Mastermind or the Red Beard Ghost; the latter's in the shipwrecks. Just dodge the rounds of ghosts and the sword Red Beard throws. Make it hit the ropes holding a treasure chest in mid-air until it falls. What's interesting to note is that once you complete this, you won't be able to reenter the room from the way you originally came in. There is a way to get back in, go to the other side of the ship where the room is present, bounce off the top of the caveman enemy's head, go close to the wall of the ship and you're set. I bring this up because there's a back to the starting area shortcut.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. There're numerous shortcuts littered throughout most levels. These exist so you could get back to the starting point quicker, usually if you either don't have the required invention to progress or if you need to round up more Scooby snacks to open a gate. There're also warp zones you could unlock so you could go to certain points faster. I bring this up because these instances are fairly common. 

Okay, back to the bosses, you're next bout is with the Mastermind. Unlike the other battles where they were more straight forward, this one is slightly more complicated. First, you have to battle two enemies, once they're down you could hit two switches that're hidden behind electrical barricades. Do this for three rounds and then you could face the Mastermind head on. While contending with spawning enemies, you have to stun the Mastermind and run him into the electrical barriers.

After all that, you're free to explore the game and seek out whatever you missed. There's another area you could visit, something of a bonus area (locked behind a pay barrier of course), the Monster Gallery. Here, you could see profiles for the various monsters you encounter, as well as view some cutscenes and concept art. The latter is more of a headache than you think it is. Those scooby-snacks constitute as more than toll fare. You need to collect a certain amount to unlock the stills.

It's honestly the most sadistic aspect about the game, but that's not saying much, it seems straightforward, but I never had any luck finding all of the Scooby snacks. Of this, you get an introduction to how the levels are designed (this does a better job at explaining game design than Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius for GC/PS2), along with some concept art for the levels. And what's your reward for getting them snacks?

Disappointment rivaled only by Pac Man World 2.

There're also monster tokens scattered across the levels. Some are easy to snag, others require some problem solving or the right invention. These amount to you finding full-bodied projections of these creatures in the gallery along with some information and some Scooby-Doo trivia.

Graphics

The graphics are par the course for the year. The in-game graphics are fine, the background are even better. They fit the haunted vibe Scooby-Doo is known for. The cutscenes aren't as satisfactory. I give props for them trying to be close to the show in the opening, but it was at a cost. Maybe they wanted to follow the style of the show to a tee and opted for acceptable animation, i.e., not their best.

Music

To put this into perspective, Tommy Talarico worked as a composer on this game. The music fits the levels they appear on, as well as the show it's based on. But that's just the general levels, the boss levels doubled down and hard. The boss fights contain actual songs, like songs with lyrics. This is yet another allusion to Scooby-Doo where they occasionally have music video style scenes where the gang encounter the main monster.

The sound effects used in the game fit the show as well. They use a number of classic Hanna-Barbera sound effects, okay, they got it down in all but the Green Ghost department, give these guys a reward.

Overall

The worst thing anyone ever had to say about the game was the camera angles and the overall simplicity. When I played the game the camera didn't hinder me, and as for a simple game, it's still fairly intuitive, anyone could get into it. For what it's worth, Heavy Iron did an honorable tribute to Scooby-Doo, and it helped breathe life back into the Scooby-Doo games.

However, this was their only Scooby-Doo game. Behaviour Interactive (then Artificial Mind & Movement) kept it going with Mystery Mayhem), then the games... well... just started existing. Guess that's one turkey we won't be seeing for a while.

The Electric Piper review

Lost media works like this. Beyond some leads and the occasional clip, the full source for the time being is impossible to find. Come the discovery, people would do anything in their power to make it the most easily available film, show, whatever out there. I'm just happy that whatever could be seen again.

Such is the way with The Electric Piper. Given that Nickelodeon instills stricter copyright laws, you could always expect something of theirs to be taken down within weeks, days at worst. Exceptions apply to stuff they failed to renew their license on, which for the record helped keep Just for Kicks and Cry Baby Lane on the internet, two other lost pieces of media FYI.

History

The Electric Piper was completed in 2000, but appeared on Nickelodeon three years later. This is owed to clearance issues on the songs used. The film was directed by Raymie Muzquiz, a supervising producer who aided on many Nickelodeon shows and Klasky-Csupo productions, starting out during the first three years of The Simpsons. The film was written by Bill Burnett, one of the creators behind ChalkZone. That show had an interesting art aesthetic, and that's something that this film would double down on.

However you look at it, there seems to have been a fair level of ambition with this. Sorta why this film has a great number of recognizable actors. We have Wayne Brady, Rodney Dangerfield (who at the time knew he was at a dead end with his acting career and was hunting for paychecks), Rob Schneider and Cousin Oliver (Robbie Rist for those who're new). Also like to point out that Christine Ebersole was in this, just so I could point out she was in Mac and Me.

Remember when I brought up clearance issues early on? Well that's a contributing reason to why this film has been, until now, very difficult to find. Compared to other Nickelodeon-related lost media such as Cry Baby Lane and Clockman, this didn't have as much of a legacy, no matter how small, and for a time clips were made available. It's curiosity that encouraged people to dig this up, and curiosity saved the day.

While this film is nothing special nowadays, few have actually sat down and actually reviewed it. I only found three YouTube videos reviewing the film and they look highly suspect.

Premise

The Electric Piper is a retelling of the urban legend The Pied Piper of Hamelin. The core of it is mostly there, beyond the inclusion of kid protagonists... some songs... and Wayne Brady.

The Electric Piper and Mick and Janet Dixon.

They're going for a 60s aesthetic with this, establishing a society who have obeyed moral constructs and strong authority enforcement to a tee, and our hero is a funky fresh independent... dude?

Set in Hamlin (possibly Hamlin New York), we're given full disclosure on how rigid society is. Adults are wrapped in their pride and virtue to the point that nothing else matters to them. All they see is what violates their vision of a utopian society, and they take it out on their kids, derailing any hopes of a more free future for one confined to a stereotypical nature. Of the prime sufferers are Mick and Janet Dixon, getting dragged along by their father Nick, Nick the Dick Dixon (or Dickson, any may apply).

Thanks to the ignorance of the adults, rats begin infesting the town, and only the kids care enough to notice. This might sound like a weird call to action, but the Pied Piper was called to help a town who had been suffering from the plague. This makes sense when you take the original story into account.

Our Piper, named Sly, agrees to rid the town of the plague, and all he wants in return is a motorcycle Nick owns. Since the plague is cleared before the first third of the movie wraps, Nick naturally refuses to give up the motorcycle. Now, remember what I said about the mindset the adults have. Would Nick ever use the motorcycle again? Has he ever used it since his conversion to morality? Is the Dix in Dixon starting to make more sense here?

Continuing with another core aspect of the urban legend, The Pied Piper takes away all of the children, and given the rigid nature of society, there was nigh protest. Sly would cater to their whims, give them the life he never had a chance to live and the grownups would live on knowing that they had the chance to stop this from happening.

If it gone on any further, the kids would return, dominate the town and everything would be ran backwards. Seems like a better version of Recess, or Codename Kids Next Door, or if the later took over entirely...

Guilty pleasure, see the faults, went for a comparison, give me a break.

To the credit of the adults at this point, they actually feel bummed about losing the kids. The harsh reality of the world they've created crashing down on them, and they begin aging for some reason... Okay best I could tell, they've been ignoring stuff like their mortality and their health for so long and this is actually how old they really are, the prior scenes exist to establish how far behind they are on the times and hence, how in denial they are.

The kids catch wind on the effect their departure has on their parents and demand they go back, but Sly refuses. This leads to an interesting scene where Mick plummets to his death while trying to get to the other side of a chasm, and after Janet chastises Sly, he reluctantly agrees to let them go.

Of this, the adults learn to not put a muzzle on creative freedom, Nick gives up his motorcycle and Hamlin became San Francisco. Okay, Monroe County is a predominately blue county so this was inevitable.

Animation

One thing you could pick up on in this film is the design. It's certainly unique, in that it fits the 60s aesthetic. The animation itself is a whole other kettle of fish. The frame rate is okay, but the overall animation is a little... off. It swaps between lightly choppy movements and spontaneous clean ones. In spite of that, it's still easily identifiable, it's its own thing, and I'm not one to have a heart attack over bad animation, or people who bitch about bad animation for that matter.

Music

Given that this is a music-driven movie, it'd be foolish to not touch upon the songs. As blasphemous as it is to say, I don't know what songs they're trying to reference. I'd say that's a good thing because they found a way around the clearance situation. The songs themselves fit the themes of the scenes they occur in. A dour yet upbeat town anthem sets the rigid tone Hamlin gives, with a nice pop tune following soon after, with the rest being funk and classic rock influenced. And if you're curious, yes, unlike The Secret of NIMH 2, the actors in this are able to sing. Wayne Brady and Robbie Rist are musicians, so that could be why.

Overall

I think the reason few people tried to find this sooner was because, honestly, it was neither amazing nor bad. At least with something like Rapsittie Street Kids, you're led by the allure of bad CGI, or Cry Baby Lane, it's the fact that Nickelodeon aired something that actually parallels, sometimes surpasses Are You Afraid of the Dark? in terms of scares. This had a unique design, but it wasn't enough to elicit any further attention.

But that doesn't mean this film isn't worth watching. I get the gist of the film and once you get older and experience rigid social and working classes in full force, this would hit home. As a retelling of The Pied Piper, it has a decent approach, and it does a good job at appealing to young audiences. The acting is great, and I wouldn't be saying this had it not been for the people tied to this. Robbie Rist has shaken the rusty shackles of Cousin Oliver, Rob Schneider isn't the worst actor in this, Rodney Dangerfield does a good job too, and Wayne Brady was a great choice for Sly, fitting the funky aesthetic.

What I'm trying to say is, they did everything right here. So watch it. Okay?

Tom and Jerry Kids review

For those of you who don't know, I have an account on Manic Expression. That's where I post my better reviews (and ironically get the most feedback).

Here it is: http://www.manic-expression.com/members/channe1even/buddyblog/

Basically, for the two comments I got on my Tickle-U retrospective, each of them had the same consensus, it being that Tom and Jerry Kids was a pile of shit. And here we are today.

Right off the bat, I'm not a fan of Tom and Jerry, unless we're talking about the movie which I'll gladly support to piss off the people who'd favor the, in hindsight, repetitive older shorts- how the hell could people enjoy the same shorts over and over again, we all know that Jerry will win in the end, what pseudo-masochist could put up with this shit!?

You could say I'm just assuming, but I have seen plenty of these shorts back when they were on Cartoon Network. I caught an episode of The Tom and Jerry Show, more on that in a bit, I saw those Warner Bros. direct-to-video movies (which for the record are more tolerable to sit through). You might say that I'd hate this series, and you'd be right.

Over the years it seems as if not even Warner Bros., the current owners of the cartoons, had any idea what they wanted to do with the series, almost as if they caught on to the fact that if they try something new a 30 year old autistic man would screech until blood came out of his mouth. So they decided, fuck it, let's retell numerous famous films and throw in a Gary-Stu, that's the way to do it.

You could say that the series I'm talking about laid the groundwork for Tom and Jerry's gimmicky fate.

History

Tom and Jerry Kids began in 1990 and ended in 1993, with 65 episodes spanning four seasons. This was the third attempt at a Tom and Jerry TV series. The first, The Tom and Jerry Show, actually attempted to break the repetitive schtick of the original shorts by introducing a Yogi Bear and Boo Boo dynamic between the two characters. Obviously the violence would be toned down as a result of this. I actually caught an episode of this as a kid, and since I've seen the original Tom and Jerry shorts this caught me by surprise. Interestingly, this was produced by Hanna Barbera, who would have involvement with Tom and Jerry Kids.

There was also the Tom and Jerry Comedy Show, which seems to have returned to the roots of the shorts. The descriptions of the episodes aren't doing anything for me, let's just say the series exists for the sake of historical context. All else I could say is that this was by Filmation, pointless trivia is far more interesting to me than the series it stems from.

As for this series, it wound up on FOX, and unlike a continuing tradition held by the network since the 90s where the show would die out within one or two seasons, this sorta beat them all by double the cut-off. I dunno, I would've wanted to see more Titus or Sons of Tucson, can I give a season of this show to both of those?

Basics

You'd be looking at this most of the show's episodes.

It's important to note that this is actually one of four segments in the series. The remaining three are an expansion on Spike and his son Tyke, recurring characters from the original shorts, and Droopy and CB Bears are thrown into the ring as well. The Droopy segments seem to have been the most prevalent, with the Spike shorts coming in at a close second.

The series worked like this, there'd be three segments every episode, two Tom and Jerry segments and one dedicated to any of the other three I mentioned previously. Shows with three segments are a double edged sword. On one hand, you get a little extra entertainment, on the other hand, it's usually a sign they couldn't come up with 15 minutes of material, understandable, how else could you expand on the ever so original and gripping tale of mouse outwitting cat, especially since the violence, while not as toned down as previous Tom and Jerry TV adaptations, is relatively low.

Think of this what you will, but I only want to focus on the Tom and Jerry Kids segments. Why? Because:

• That is what I set out to view.
• This is the principal segment in this show.
• Laziness.

As a result, I'm going to discuss my impressions on a clip of the episode. These are generally episodic, and you know the story behind Tom and Jerry, all that's changed is that they're kids.

What I've got from the clip:

• Very vanilla slapstick.
• Stale 90s television animation, basically done around the time Hanna-Barbera was kicking back on television production.
• Those kidinized designs for Tom and Jerry are doing little for me. I've seen worse, but I also see looks that say "I need money."

And that's all I need to see.

When it comes to episodic content reliant on one form of schtick, it becomes old fairly quickly. You see one, you might as well have seen all of them. Tom and Jerry isn't the kind of show that warrants immediate attention, it's better suited as background noise. But for some reason, people enjoy this repetitive shit. Whenever anyone tried to do something new, they were castrated for it. The average Tom and Jerry fan is comparable to the average classic Sonic fan, why else do people herald Sonic Mania as the best Sonic game when all it is is nostalgia pandering?

===============

I briefly touched upon this show in my Tickle-U retrospective but never gave it a full review, and honestly, I'm fine with that. There really isn't a lot I have to say about this, and quite frankly, I'm glad I got it over with so I could go back to more personal and obscure stuff.

Which reminds me, I have a review log now so I could keep track of stuff I want to cover and to give you an idea on what I'd be up to later on down the road: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SSLe8vTrnpE4sN-WmBPjyE2-UHyTGhhoHn_dZxNyLWc/edit?usp=sharing

Fatherhood review

It's easy to tackle Bill Cosby, especially given the shit that he has been tied to. It's hard to pinpoint every show he was ever involved in. Believe it or not, this was intended to be a retrospective on Bill Cosby related shows, but then I'd be obligated to talk about the movies and there're too many shows he was involved with to cover.

I may be down, but I'm not out. Given my bizarre fixation on obscure stuff, I felt it'd be interesting to talk about a Bill Cosby show that has fallen under the cracks. Imagine if The Cosby Show and My Wife and Kids banged, or in Cosby's case, drugged the latter, got them pregnant and okay you get the picture.

History

Fatherhood came almost as quickly as it went, let's put it like that. The series lasted from 2004 up until 2005 on Nick at Nite. While we're on the subject, this was actually Nick at Nite's first original animated series, who knew? The series was created by Bill Cosby and Charles Kipps, a frequent collaborator with the former who also had some writing credits on Cosby's previous series Little Bill. It's ironic that Cosby was involved with Nickelodeon twice, the same network that housed Dan Schneider. Nickelodeon, the place for sexual assault affiliations. Also Mo Willems and Paul Tibbitt served as producers apparently.

The first season was released on DVD, but at some point every episode was put up on iTunes. Surprised it's still available there in spite of the Cosby allegations. I watched Nick at Nite around this time, so I was actually able to catch this show. Of that, only one episode stuck in my mind, and given my penchant for embellishing details in my mind, it turned out differently than I remembered.

The series currently sits at a flat 5.0 on IMDb. Interestingly, the few reviews for the series were published the year this series came out. At best, it works well with what it has, at worst, it has ugly animation apparently.

Premise

The series centers on the Bindlebeeps. Really? Bindlebeeps? You could've called him the Zibzobzoobidybops or- you know what? Fuck the Cosby jokes.

Anyway, the Bindlebeeps feature Arthur, who's a scientist apparently. What that amounts to in the series so far is that he's super smart. You could've made him a doctor, but then again it'd just be a Cosby Show rehash if it went down like that, but wait, he's also a teacher. What next? Does he have x-ray vision or invisibility? That seemed to have helped him in his prime.

Aiding him is his wife, who just gives comments basically. Then there're his children who're so bland that they don't even deserve to be mentioned by name, but rather the archetypes they represent. We have the socialiteish eldest daughter, the bratty middle child boy, and the sickly sweet youngest daughter.

Onto the framework. Basically, it's your average Cosby sitcom. Cosby was the Nickelback of the black-com scene. Once you find the parallel within every Cosby sitcom, you'd have no reason to continue. Something happens, a lesson is learned, some comedy is peppered in to make the show seem like it's more promising than it actually is, you question Nick at Nite's quality assurance, rinse and repeat.

The short summary given to the series on Wikipedia is actually more interesting than the show itself. I get the idea that the parents would be lectured by their kids on what would be best given the situation, where we could get a whole new perspective from the eyes of people who're taught the most often. That sounds fairly original, and I'd gladly something watch that over this.

If you go with the same structure for every episode, every show, you won't even have the satisfaction of people returning to mock you. Little Bill at least had the concept of life being viewed from a child (along with more stylish animation), even Romeo! had more interesting characters and a low quality charm that made it its own. Plus the summary tidbit sounds like a much better series... Growing Around? As for the My Wife and Kids comparison, it kinda makes sense. The family structure is the same, the wife looks like Janet, the behavior is similar, but Arthur Bindlebeep is no Damon Wayans.

Allow me to sum up by discussing the tidbits of the one episode I remember seeing. The episode starts with a basic moral, early bird catches the worm. Pssh, more like the early bird develops a psychological complex and finds itself going to bed at around the same time. They visit their parents, the grandfather is a fitness nut.

In an interesting twist, after Arthur feels like he's still getting babied by his parents, his father gets injured and Arthur begins to feel like he's in charge of him. This would've been an interesting premise... had it not been for the fact that this occurs late into the episode, and it just amounts to Arthur making his father take medication.

This was the first episode. If your impressions are poor here, you won't have the initiative to continue. I believe I saw more of this show when I was young, but the episodes have slipped my mind. Maybe that's for the best.

Animation

Some say the animation is ugly...

They're onto something

I'm not one to nitpick, but I feel tempted to break that principle. Always looking to try something new. First up, this looks weird as hell. I've seen worse, but this is fairly beyond smell range. I'm honestly more peeved at the quality of this promotional image. The wife looks like she was tacked on at the last minute. Overall, I guess they wanted to go with a weird style because even they knew they couldn't hide the bland nature of the series. 

And no, I haven't forgotten the dog in the middle. It looks as it it was drawn on the concept art after it was completed. Like hey, we need a dog to bring our generic series full circle. Admittedly, the dog looks a bit better in the actual series, but concept art exists to sell you on a series. Would you back this if this was your only window into the series? I love cutesy archetype's smug look and gestures, as if she's saying "Yeah that's my dog, you think it looks better than your hoe of a wife?"

The series' animation is basic. It has some nice backgrounds and I guess the animation complements it. According to an IMDb review, this series uses CGI, but it seems to only apply to the intro.

Overall

I take it Hannibal Buress caught on to the repetitive nature of Bill Cosby and tried to get the ball rolling again on the sexual assault allegations so he wouldn't have to put up with it anymore. It's obvious nobody cared about this series. Not enough to be mocked in later years, not even ringing bells with Cosby followers. If you're the kind of person who wants painfully harmless content, you might get a kick out of this series.

I'm probably going to get hate less for the shit Cosby jokes, and more for the fact that I spoke positively about Growing Around... plot thickens.