LTA: Tales from the Hood 3

 Whether or not I get this out on time or after, Happy Halloween, belated or not.

In the past I sought out movies to review if I could see them for free, so not to judge it based on how well worth it my money was. But things change, and now I’m not only registered on Hulu and Paramount+, but I also buy episodes and movies from YouTube. What helps is that it’s a one time purchase and usually no greater than 20 bucks, so a drop in the bucket that you can keep as long as you want. And what did I decide to buy?

Tales from the Hood 3

Before I get into why I'm jumping to 3, let me go over some backstory. This is the third installment of Tales from the Hood, duh, released in 1995. Tales from the Hood was directed by Rusty Cundieff and produced by Spike Lee, it's a horror anthology whose stories are based on issues that affect African Americans, police brutality, racial profiling, domestic abuse, gang violence, and most obviously, racism.

While not the greatest anthology film ever, I give it props for being so raw when discussing the issues presented, they do not hold back in the slightest, and it has some charm in its dairy quality, or cheese. While not a rousing success, it would spawn a sequel in 2018, a paradox if you will. How can you cash in on your movie if you happened to be the directors of it? While Tales from the Hood was fairly on the nose when it came to the issues they talked about, at least the stories were written well enough for you to get into.

Tales from the Hood 2 isn't so lucky, and the tales suffer for it. If you're not with the message, you're not gonna have a good time. They have a section relating to Emmett Till, and there's a town election involved. It's also a lot cheaper compared to the first film, coming to a head in the first section. Keith David is also in this, and I'll give him this, he proved to me he can do more than deep imposing voices.

I was going to review Tales from the Hood 2, but given that American Nightmares, also by Cundieff and Darin Scott, gave me such a terrible time I question how far I'd make it before I'd find myself determining what happens because of how on the nose they are with their social and political commentary.

Tales from the Hood 3 was produced for the SyFy channel, a red flag given that a lot of that channel's original movies are quite frankly cheap and terrible, thanks a lot Nu Image and The Asylum. However in spite of that, most people consider the third film to be a return to form of sorts, or at least better than the second. Well, I'll be the judge of that, with 12 bucks on the line.

The Movie

As is customary of anthology films, there is a frame story that would lead us to four different stories. In this frame story, a man is taking a child to safety, safety from what look to be evil spirits. To keep the tension low, the girl tells him stories. The past two films had the stories told by one Mr. Simms, the devil in secret. It seems they're trying something new here at least, especially as the second film burned away any good will those wraparounds had.

One thing I learned is that the less we know about those in the wraparounds, the more likely they are to die. It's a step up from the previous film where everyone is a strawman.

Story 1

The first story deals with a slumlord, no other way to say it as it's a landlord looking after a slum apartment, David Burr, who wants to take down the apartment he's looking after to build high rent condos. Admittedly, not the first time I've seen a story like this, last time it was an episode of Tales from the Darkside, Parlor Floor Front, either way I can already tell who the bad guy and good guy are, but let's be fair here.

Burr wants to evict the Bradfords, but they refuse to go. They do a little something different here, with the reason being that their son has cancer, went through chemotherapy and the stress involved with moving to a new place, let alone if the family can find something new, can stress him out and potentially kill him. And in situations where a child is said to have cancer, this turns out to be true. On a downside, any sympathy we have for Burr is not as high as it should be, beyond some small details like him being up against his boss, who would sue him for fraud if the deal didn't go through, and another thing that will be brought up later. The issue is that we expect them to get it in the end, that they're not people, just characters. But credit where it's due, it's not as strawmanny as American Nightmares, even if he curses out a kid.

Here's where the plot gets going. Burr makes a deal with his friend to burn the building down, but as another sympathetic point, Burr intended to just drive the family out, and in the context of a horror film, of course that won't be what happens. But back to no sympathy, we get a strong implication an arson job had been requested by him previously.

I get it though, make it clear who we're supposed to root for, if the family winds up striking back we'd feel better about it. This black and white mindset works better in a series of self-contained stories so that way we don't need that much time to get to know the characters. We get a scene where Burr gets a bizarre phone call, implying there was a jump ahead in time, but then it goes to the apartments as the bodies get hauled out. Either it was poor timing, or a hint to how an ensuing haunting is going to occur.

For some more credit, for those who did die, it was the father and the son, and that honestly helps. If the father lived he would peg Burr as a suspect. If the son lived the phone sene would be pointless. The mother survives, but is horribly burned and likely to succumb to the injuries, and the only reason they didn't get out in time was because the smoke alarm didn't work. So far, things seem well thought out at the very least.

If Burr wanted to be sympathetic, he would call off the deal out of respect to the parted or tried to. Either he was remorseful or realized that this would come back to haunt him, case in point on the latter, that weird phone call from before? It was the boy dribbling his basketball, along with an answering machine that admittedly caught me off guard.

The way I see it, either this will end with Burr admitting his part in the fire and getting arrested, or he gets burned alive in his own house. We're about to find out, but first, Burr winds up killing the arson he hired. So, looks like he's taking that little secret to the grave, or his paranoia is gonna be his undoing. We also get a little more of the guy pushing Burr to drive the family out, and let's just assume he's going to die or something, even if he didn't intend for Burr to do first and third degree murder. The boss says he's going to board the love boat, and I would make a comment about how everyone involved with the series of the same name is dead, but it turns out only one of the main actors involved with it is dead as of this writing, and it was only two years ago, go figure.

Anyway, the mother is dead, and we get more apparitions and sudden phone calls, along with some gags like the phone suddenly catching fire and a Scooby-Doo homage that happened earlier on. Burr would go back to the apartments, and something tells me he's about to die either poetically or not, he's already planning on shooting ghosts. Anyway, clearly CGI basketball comes into play and nothing bad happens yet... because he's on the way to the scene of the crime.

I expected a jumpscare, just not in the way the movie would play out. If he had the opportunity to just walk out of the room I feel even less bad for his inevitable demise, it's just taking forever and a day to get there. I'm not saying that as a negative, I just know it's gonna happen. But hey, at least this film's drag isn't as bad as the typical Spumco cartoon, for one thing it's not ugly.

And of course there are some good jumpscares, the key is to not make the suspense drag out for longer, and catch us off guard. We're about to hit the end soon, as Burr is thrown out the window, and doesn't die right away... until a few seconds later. And that's it.

The story was fine, a good introduction, just a simple little tale. I think a twist could've worked where the family lied about the son having cancer and the fiery death turned out to be karmic justice. I mean it was worth a try.

Story 2

It seems Rusty and Darin couldn't help themselves, because this next story concerns a bigot, and it comes off as wishful thinking for a little girl to be telling the story. Then again this could be from secondhand knowledge.

One interesting I found is that the bigot in question vandalized a sign that said All Lives Matter, a phrase used by those who lobby against Black Lives Matter. Weird. The story sees said bigot who lives in a bunker isolated from the rest of the world, communicating via a racist radio station. Last time I encountered a bigot running a radio station, I watched American Nightmares, and I already have an idea that this one will be the superior of the two.

While the man spouts common racist talking points, it really just feels like bringing them together rather than making a strawman out of him, and if there's no one else, whom would he be a strawman to? Nobody, but the voices in his head. That seems like the schtick here, the man is driven crazy by years of isolation and that will be his undoing.

But that may change, as we see one guy shut off his smart watch implying he's trying to get him out. Either that or their constant focus on the man's sex dolls is gonna play a role in the ensuing twist, downfall, whatever. Or maybe it's the poster he muses over. Whatever the case, just like before we're taking some sweet ass time to get to the end. If the end is gonna see him get sweet relief from years of isolation, that'll be pretty bold given who he is and what the directors stand for.

After a while, we get our twist. Apparently the area he's in is surrounded by a force field, and he fires his gun which lands in his head. So... was he a prisoner this entire time and finally cracked? Okay I was close, he was trapped like an animal in the zoo, was because he's dead. So, it turns out this is the distant future, where the whole alphabet soup of degenerates are trapped like zoo animals. I don't condone degenerate behavior, but this is probably a dream utopia in action for MovieBob, or AniMat, or Quinton Reviews, or insert terminally online Twitter user here.

Benefit to this is that it subverted expectations, I guess he wasn't directly targeted, just left to his own devices.

Story 3

Simply put, a pop singer and her manager plot to murder a wealthy retiree, but we can count on things to go horribly wrong. Think story one, but with a focus on first degree murder. I will say, Chela does have pipes. Anyway, I guess the mere existence of one of the singers pisses another one off, no wait, Chela's the backup singer, and she would be picked up by a guy to become her manager.

The retiree in particular is Marie Benoit, another faded primadonna, see how many get that sweet Metallica reference. She had been burned due to her performing a rendition of Carmen, and outed for being a black woman doing so. I'd say she was well ahead of her time, but I'll go no further than that, I think the keenest eyes would know where that's going.

Anyway, with one scene where Marie asks for blood, two things come to mind, she'll either be revealed to be a vampire, or this will be a repeat of the third segment in Tales from the Hood 2. This segment has more of a focus on the characters compared to the previous two, and it's kinda interesting how Chela and Marie would form a kinship based on their burns from the music industry. I sense a betrayal is in bloom...

And look at that, I was right. When Marie didn't shower Chela with praise, she would literally murder her. I mean it's not funny, but this can apply so well to a lot of people these days, those who put themselves on a pedestal and crumble at the slightest bit of criticism...

Until it turns out it was okay to laugh for now because this was a fantasy sequence that clues us in to what kind of person Chela is. You got me there. Anyhow, I think we're about to get our plot device real soon, a jewelry box filled with expensive goods no doubt. Either that or we go back to the blood detail, as Chela goes to get a bag of it for a transfusion, and amazingly this turns out to be innocent.

But anyway, the two pull up to her house, Chela bringing her simp of a manager, and the two would consider murdering Marie, and somehow I feel like Chela has more of a soul than SSSniperwolf, why else does she have a nightmare? Oh wait, it's because this is what would encourage her to go through with the murder plot, at least that's how it looks.

Anyway, as far as their little murder plot goes, the blood transfusion actually plays a role here, as they plan to mix type B blood with type O blood, and the manager guy gives her the option to back out of the plan, so I guess while he may suffer she may get the worst ending possible. Marie dies, and hey, you ever wanted to see people swimming in money in live action? Now's your chance, these two are complicit as fuck, and also huge fans of Dave Chapelle by the sound of it.

But now I'm at a crossroad, how are they going to suffer at the end? We've ruled out the vampire deal by this point, so what is her dream gonna come to life? No, just guessing blindly, the music box may have something to do with it, then again maybe not, because right now we have to dip into what the fuck territory, with a man engaged in a satanic ritual.

But perhaps vampirism may play a role if my sporadic guesses suit me well. The manager turns out to be a twist villain, drinking blood and likely using Marie's death to get access to it, or perhaps Park, I really should get in the habit of referring to people on a first name basis, intended to use Chela as a means of providing fresh blood to rejuvenate Marie, using young talent to do just that, which, while predictable, works given the context.

Look at that, I was right, he was a twist villain. But there's more. Marie alluded to a man who helped her land the lead role in Carmen, and he is revealed to be that man, hence using young talent to steal their life to rejuvenate her and thus give her a chance to show a new world how capable she is, in a contrast to what was once a discriminatory one.

As of now, this is my favorite story of the bunch, it had a twist that caught me off guard and a surprisingly compelling end.

Story 4

Okay, throughout the wraparounds, we get the narrative of this big man attempting to bring a girl to her mother while avoiding evil beings. They build up to this at least, and I will say it's better than Tales from the Hood 2's wraparounds in that there's build up, rather than just taking forever to be upfront. But we have one last story to go over.

For this story, we focus on a simple tale of karmic justice. A thief assaults and robs his victims, and his method in doing so makes him known as the Punch and Run Bandit. Well, it's leagues better than Ronnie the Robber, and yes, that was a name used by someone unironically. In one of his acts, he would get cursed, and that curse would come in a pair of shoes he gets from a crime, you know, walk a mile in their shoes.

As is tradition at this point, they make us hate the guy that's gonna suffer the most at the end, but can I really complain about a crook being one-dimensional? About the only thing about, well, Percy, is that he's receptive, they point out a consistent element to his on-the-street work and changes it up. We get our plot device quite soon, a guy with a pair of gold shoes. He's not virtuous, he's just defining booty calls and is probably a few sins away from being that guy in a horror story.

So, as you may figure, the shoes are cursed and won't come off, and as you may not figure, he begins to go through the signs of death. It starts comedic with his bowls being voided, okay fair this is the first instance in this movie where toilet humor is used, and I guess you can't have someone dying without everything just letting loose.

It seems this is more of a comedy horror story, I mean it helps diversify things here. I don't have much to add to this story to sum up, but I do have one thing to share. Apparently whoever wrote this film's Wikipedia article really favored this story and gave a complete synopsis for it. Either way, I may skip to the end of this, but that doesn't mean I didn't watch the story the whole way through, I just don't have a whole lot to say about it, other than symbolism up the ass, I guess they wanted to flex their mad editing skillz with a scene involving an angel and a demon, they manage to portray the stages of death fairly well, more mad editing skillz, Ezra Miller as the Flash hauls Percy to his fate, Percy doesn't have a happy end, shocker, and we get a shit load of exposition, though to be fair it does kinda help explain the bits that seemed to exist for the hell of it.

But the final end, I assumed Percy would be begging for mercy at the end, but good thing I misread, because now, Percy gets torn apart as his body is linked to the guy he killed in getting the shoes, by an impatient bitch and another doctor he tries to talk to just says absolutely nothing as his body is now tied to reality forever.

Let me say this, compared to the last story I saw in American Nightmares, this is superior to that, not only because I made it to the end but because it was an interesting tale all together, he certainly deserved it at the end, I guess. Though one other thing about this story is that it seems kinda familiar. I have a feeling I caught this on TV time ago, certain scenes definitely look familiar. But maybe it's just me.

Ending

Back to the wraparound one last time, we get a twist ending, where the man is revealed to be a killer who targets children. He would be surrounded by the spirits of his victims, the bad things he was on the run from are escorts, sorta like the demons from the previous story and the girl herself is a demon. All else you gotta know is that the reveals on each are well done, keeping up the thrills and tension. It was totally worth watching through. And while we never got Mr. Simms, we do get his famous line at the end.

The souls of the slain are freed, so an otherwise happy end.

Final Thoughts

I spent around 15 bucks on this movie, and honestly it was worth the investment.

Tales from the Hood 3 doesn't hold a candle to the first movie, but it works with what it has. Its stories have enough twists to keep you on your toes, they commit to more gruesome scares and at least it doesn't try to regurgitate previous tales, while keeping with the spirit of the previous entry.

It's certainly better than the previous film, which was just cheap and way too on the nose, and as this is a SyFy movie, it just makes it even more commendable how well the third film turned out.

If you wanna see my ranks for the four stories, it'd be the third, followed by the fourth, then the first and then the second. But they're all good stories, don't get it twisted. And if not, this is way better than American Nightmares, that's the bottom, stories executed so badly you'd swear they're satirical.

I was desperate for something Halloween-related to cover, and I'm glad I gave this a shot. So with that, thanks for reading, and to all...

Happy Halloween... MOTHAFUKAS!

LTA: That Thundercats Cartoon Few People Remember

 Its been a while. The dust has settled on Thundercats Roar, the original Thundercats is hardly touched upon nowadays, everyone had their say and now I think we're at a point where we can look back at what we got with some fresh eyes. Maybe they just needed some time to settle, or something far worse came around to make you realize that you had something before it was gone.

It's important I bring up Thundercats Roar because it plays a role in the show I'm actually talking about. Around the time discourse surrounding Teen Titans Go was at a reasonable peak, any good faith I had in the original Teen Titans was reduced to nothing and the bean-smile bullshit began, I will not say Calarts, because I think John Kricfalusi has always been shit and he invented the deragatory term. With that in mind, Thundercats Roar was seen as a byproduct of a slowly growing tumor in the animation industry. If it was a comedic spin on an action series then it must be the worst thing in the entire world. That mentality had carried on for years, and the only exception to this was Be Cool Scooby Doo, then again with something like Velma I wouldn't be surprised if Get a Clue was gonna get another shot.

Now, where the hell am I going with this? There was another Thundercats cartoon that came out years prior, and only one person of note ever mentioned it. I had never seen anyone compare this to that cartoon, but then again by this point I deemed the entirety of the animation community to no longer be worth watching.

Title

The only two people I know who mentioned the existence of the cartoon were Guru Larry and Egoraptor. That's it. The latter was when he negatively compared Roar to it, and when Larry said that the 2011 version was superior to the 80s version in his opinion, that's it. Now that I fulfilled the title, let's move on.

Waxing

I was watching Cartoon Network around this time because I lacked any self-control. I managed to catch stuff like Mystery Incorporated, The Looney Tunes Show and stuff like that, and if you want my opinion on those back when I saw them with fresh eyes... I didn't really care about them. I watched them when they were on but I thought very little about them. For The Looney Tunes Show they had the worst portrayal of Lola Bunny by far, annoying as fuck. About the only thing that kinda interested me was the fact that Daffy Duck had a girlfriend in it.

As for Mystery Incorporated, it just so happened to be on and wasn't bad enough for me to change the channel, but it had very little impact on me. I wasn't begging for more when the last episode aired, and if anything it seems like the only reason it worked with so many people was because it played to their interests and just so happened to be the first Scooby Doo show to really try a darker format, complete with cliches.

I was never a fan of Thundercats, and any knowledge I had of it was fleeting, to say the very least. I didn't go into the 2011 series as a fan, it would be my first proper introduction to, well, just about everything. As with the previous two shows I mentioned I never felt too strongly about it. And after ten years... I barely remember anything about it.

About the only things I recall about the show that didn't come from scattered clips was part of a commercial that had Wiley Kit and Kat trying to convince Lion-O on his adventure, and parts of the fourth episode. That's it. So either I didn't really watch much of it, or perhaps, hear me out, while it has interesting ideas on the surface, they lend very little memorability. I don't like Avatar: The Last Airbender but I manage to remember a majority of it years later, it was just too big for its own good, and it set an impossible standard.

Something tells me when Cartoon Network took this show on they had Avatar fans in mind and wanted to get a similar turnout. They got a crew member from Avatar, Ethan Spaulding, to co-develop the show. He would also work on Legend of Korra, but perhaps I know him best for directing Scooby-Doo Return to Zombie Island. But you wanna know who also developed the 2011 Thundercats caroon? Michael Jelenic, who also co-developed Teen Titans Go, and of course he co-directed the Super Mario Bros Movie.

Hmmm I wonder, do I back the guy who managed to produce lucrative and successful films and cartoons, or do I back a guy who focused on toothless action shows and when he struck out he made a steaming turd...

Anyhow, regardless of fan reception, Thundercats 2011 bombed out after a single season of 26 episodes. While there isn't any concrete reason behind why, rather than just assume Cartoon Network didn't know any better, I can sum up my guess in a word...

BUDGET

Shows like Thundercats look to be quite expensive to make and manage, and if there's any indication that it's not getting the success its looking for, why sink any more money into it? When you take into account that the show's animation was outsourced to Japan, who wavers a higher price tag than Korean studios, along with managing a fairly wide cast and how prices for most animated series tend to go into the mid-high millions- fuck it, why explain business when people operate on feelings and parasocial relationships alone?

Whether it was because the show was essentially a money sink that wasn't able to get the support necessary to justify keeping it alive, or perhaps it was the schedule that people couldn't keep up with, Thundercats died out and only a small few even remember it exists. Way I see it, it's yet another example of a generic Cartoon Network action show, hitting many of the same notes as other shows like it. The ideas aren't terrible in and of themselves, but the problem is how often they're done, practically verbatim, and I feel Thundercats did not do anything new with ideas generally associated with shows like it.

I'm just saying, if they did more people would've remembered the show, well, outside of a dedicated fanbase of those who enjoy shows like it.

A lot of you may know by now that I'm not a big fan of dark action cartoons. The last one I still enjoy is Todd McFarlane's Spawn. It seems Cartoon Network, DC, Time Warner, whoever, have found a formula and milked it for all its worth, and people ate that shit up every single time. I get shows like these make up for cliches by having moments that strike a chord, but if the moments are played out verbatim to other shows like it, or you can predict what happens by the end of it, that's not good writing, I'm sorry, but it could be much better.

And it really fits into how I feel about Thundercats 2011. Once more it was either a byproduct of CN's toothless action shows, or they wanted to get Avatar fans to tune in, why else did it take so long for them to think "Huh, that's weird, I suddenly have this urge to reboot Thundercats."

They play their action scenes relatively straight, at least from what I've seen, and I assume they would do the same to everything else. For instance, let's refer to the fourth episode. The crux of that is that Lion-O and company encounter a species of people that rapidly age. When I first saw this, even back then I figured "Oh, this character is gonna die of old age.", and he does.

I get what they're going for, but there's a huge problem there. If you give any idea this character would progressively get older, you can expect them to die at any point. And unsurprisingly, they play this as a heart-wrenching moment, they took this more seriously than a keen-minded viewer would. It's honestly insulting. I hate to criticize a death scene because it's gross to comment on a tender moment, but the execution there left so much to be desired. Were they trying to make us feel bad in an earnest attempt that went wrong? Or did they do it because they were obligated to? If its the latter, it reaffirms why I really don't like shows like it, it's formulaic, and thus leads to a hollow experience. Not helping that many of these series existed to push toy-lines and get money, which not even generic animated sitcoms had that as their MO.

And I have a feeling the rest of the episodes have a checklist. Lion-O's dad is killed, we have those shipping moments, Lion-O learns to be a mature and proper warrior, drama, you get the point. If you can predict what a series would entail before you see it for yourself, it's a sign that the writing leaves much to be desired.

But you may be thinking, "You're being a dick, if the writing is at least engaging and entertaining enough you can forgive these so called overdone cliches right?" Of course, that's perfectly fine. Just because I don't see it that doesn't mean you can't. If you enjoy shows like these more power to you, I won't deny you that right just because I happen to disagree.

Not even referring to the show's overall reception, but regardless of how it's reviewed, few people ever brought it up since it aired, and the only time it saw any kind of spotlight since was when Thundercats Roar hit the scene. It didn't do anything new, which doesn't have to be a bad thing, and it'd be hypocritical for me to say that given I can forgive most adult animated sitcoms, but it's easy to see how Thundercats can be lost in the shuffle, especially given the density of other shows like it on Cartoon Network.

Maybe CN didn't do the best job at promoting it, maybe it just aired at a bad time, maybe they couldn't get it to sell toys, maybe it cost too much to manage, but by the end of it all, what does this show have that I can consider worth it, that no other show had done already?

Beyond a dedicated niche and a few reviews on YouTube, how much success did this show have? How many people are talking about it? I'll give it this, for as many times as people called everything underrated in spite of these things already being beloved, I guess it can apply to this show, if I was into the genre.

Defending A Third Dad Cartoon

 If I was forced to choose a Chris Savino cartoon for the rest of my life, his run on Dexter’s Laboratory would be my choice. It’s down to perspective when it comes to the final two seasons of the show, if you view it with some degree of separation from prior ones, it honestly kinda helps it.

I never take any discussions on the state of long running shows seriously, because no matter what, it always comes down to how inferior later episodes are, no matter what. And some get it worse than others.

A Third Dad Cartoon is considered the worst episode from the Savino era, and I honestly disagree. Here’s why.

While a lot more went on in the previous two Dad cartoons, this one took a different direction, and to put it simply, it’s a few things. It’s a demonstration of how boring golf is, and Dad is an enthusiast who would take it seriously to the point he would take a while for the perfect swing. It’s down to patience in golf, pick the right club, make sure you’re in the right position, relax, no sounds, they nail how it goes.

There’s also an obvious joke.The joke is that we’re waiting for him to hit the ball, and then bam, the suspense leads to a fake out thanks to a rain out. Either that or there’s a hidden subtext. They ran out of time and wanted to pad the rest of the block out with this.

Even with this in mind, I get it, it leaves a lot to be desired, but my problem is that the joke went over everyone’s heads. It’s not “I get what they’re doing but this was just boring.”, but more “Hit the ball already! Jesus abandoned us!” I can’t control how people think, but I can still whine about it. If you have to spell out the joke, it would make it even less funny than it actually is.

So, TL;DR, A Third Dad Cartoon was either filler or a demonstration of how boring golf is as told subtly through show don’t tell. Or perhaps I just don’t hate this episode as much as everyone else. Pick your poison.

Worst Family Ties Episode

 I've been binging a lot of classic sitcoms lately, my go-tos have always been MeTV and Antenna TV. What helps either is that their schedules are consistent. One of the shows I have always tried to catch was Family Ties, a classic 80s staple that I figured would age like milk, but that wasn't the case. It's a great series with a believable cast.

I'd like to make something clear about the show given the context of the episode. I know Family Ties is more liberal compared to other shows from the time. It's like a tame version of All in the Family with a more liberal slant, it's subtle compared to All in the Family but when it shows it shows. The more liberal portions of the family consist of Stephen and Elyse Keaton, and the youngest daughter Jennifer, who will be the crux of the episode I'm going to focus on.

Rain Forests Keep Falling on My Head

This episode immediately followed an episode of Designing Women, one focusing on the allegations of sexual assault from Clarence Thomas to Anita Hill. Following that was an environmental episode of Family Ties, two social-issue episodes in one hour. It doesn't help that one did it better than the other. While Designing Women is certainly liberal, they did a good job in trying to keep things neutral. Then again the prospect of socially-liberal activism in Designing Women may seem odd given that many of these situations arise when black figures just so happen to be on the wrong side, and the show just so happens to take place in a southern state.

Clarence Thomas, as well as Julia running against a black man, I'm going to hell for this.

But while that dealt with a situation that involves allegations as well as the prospect of women holding little say in situations like that, especially against people in higher power, Family Ties was a lot more petty when it came to the social issues they covered.

It's an Environmental Episode

Let me make something clear, episodes of any show focusing on the environment hardly ever turn out good. A stark majority of them tend to have the same problems and turn out the same way. One character in particular would get derailed as they suddenly become obsessed with the environment, they run people ragged or turn other characters into strawmen, and by the end the environmental-case is seen as in the right.

Each episode is some variation thereof, and it always feels unpleasent to watch. For another example, refer to the King of the Hill episode It's Not Easy Being Green, or whatever the hell it's called. Perhaps ironically enough they did another environmental episode into its twilight seasons, and it was much better, in that nobody suddenly became a watered down Charles Manson.

Jennifer Keaton RIP

As mentioned before, I'm aware Jennifer is among the more liberal of the Keatons, moreso than her parents whom have mediated their views over the years. The episode has an interesting concept, Jennifer finds herself becoming depressed after learning of some unfriendly truths about how certain things negatively affect the environment, and she can't deal. In the past Jennifer was known for not making the best decisions when she was under pressure, such as how she tried to get back a childhood friend that was dating Mallory, or how she tried to become popular and lost sight of who she was.

But then again those are non-partisan issues, or lack any basis in social activism. Whether or not this is fair game for Jennifer, either they didn't do a good job executing it, or this was a bad idea from the start. As to be expected, Jennifer begins to chide everyone who does things that harm the environment, you can count on styrofoam entering that chat. Spoilers it does.

I can forgive an environmental episode because in spite of the negative elements I brought up, at least it did its job. The problem is that the episode implies that environmentalism is starting to harm Jennifer mentally, and I'm not reaching here, she says even the weather channel is making her depressed. In this situation, the episode would end with Jennifer having an emotional breakdown, but we don't get that. We do however get her absolutely breaking her guidance counselor though and something so close to making it clear she's going about environmentalism in a bad way.

But it all goes to nothing by the end. I feel like end was tacked on, with everyone essentially enabling her, because that's how you resolve depression, feed into it and let it swell into something worse. It felt like a jump to a radically different issue, or just an earlier portion of it, yeah I really shook my counselor, but lol thanks for caring. It really killed the entire episode, and by the end, I was absolutely stunned. It was the first episode of the night, and in the first quarter of the second, I just shut the TV off and went to bed, I was shook.

Final Thoughts

Rainforests Keep Falling on my Head is not only an example of a typical environmental episode derailing a character, but it embodies how badly a rushed ending can ruin an episode. It didn't feel satisfying and it did nothing to sell me on the message it told.

How could this have been better? Well, they could've followed in the footsteps of the episode where Jennifer tries to get in with the cool kids, she gets in trouble when she imposes her views on others, she and her dad have a heart to heart relating to how hard activism can be on any front, and while she'll stick to her environmental views she'll try to show some self-control when she sees others infringing, ending with her catching Stephen trying to smuggle a styrofoam container, or cup, something to make for a good final joke.

The issue here is that along with adhering to similar trappings of other environmental episodes, the episode feels very disjointed, rushed and borderline unfinished, and that wasn't even an issue with the rest of the series. I can forgive Jennifer sticking to her guns if there was more thought put into it, and they just abandoned the depression angle, perhaps just have her freak out over small things, argument, then have someone talk things out.

Way I see it now, this was a damning blow to the series, I can be hyperbolic about it because Family Ties isn't a kids show, never was. I don't want to see any more of the series for a good while. I can forgive episodes that lean in on ideologies, but if you want to keep me invested, you have to make sure there's more to it, and you put in the right effort.

Why I prefer the Games Ren and Stimpy

Ever since the downfall of John Kricfalusi, as in, people actually decided to speak up and reveal him to be an utter piece of shit, and thus it pulled the curtain back on the actual quality of John's work, we see what he can do without any interference, and sufficed to say it turned out to be shit. I once did an edit of Cans Without Labels and he proceeded to flag it down, so you can say I'm a bit biased, and I also did an edit of the George Liquor Program.

But in spite of all that, John's initial tenure with The Ren and Stimpy Show is still held to some decent regard. It's history by this point, but allow me to break it down:

• The Ren and Stimpy Show proved to be a very influential show for Nickelodeon.
• John was a creative with no filter and fought tooth and nail with the network on how the writing went down.
• He was a perfectionist at the cost of getting shit done on time and sought to push boundaries where they weren't welcome.
• Nickelodeon would fire him over the missed deadlines and thus take over the remainder of the series.
• People either really hate or consider this era of the show to be mid.

While the Games era has its fans there're still some people who consider it to be a far cry from the older seasons, or they just don't like it. I can see where that comes from, once the creator is taken off of a project it shows in later episodes. I'm just saying it's hard to look back on the originals knowing what we know about John now, and how a lot of the faults in his later works reflect in the Spumco seasons, and the only reason they're any better now is because of network interference, of course some things would slip out.

So why would I prefer the Games era to Spumco? Let's look over both.

Spumco

What made the Spumco seasons so good? A lot of people would say it was because it had a lot of daring adult jokes that would fly over everyone's heads as a kid, and really hit them as an adult. Ren and Stimpy did it first and I can see where the novelty lies, but two things, one, once you figure out the joke, it can get a little worn out as now the joke turns from complicated to making you laugh once or twice but now, it's time to move on.

Second, Rocko's Modern Life was also known for its adult jokes, but that show had more class. Both shows did work on trying to slip stuff by the censors, but the smoking gun is the kind of jokes either shows get away with. One hand, double entendres, the other, cigars look like turds and gross out. It's down to preference really, but I prefer the former because the way the jokes are carried out are funny enough in their own right to keep me interested.

Ren and Stimpy certainly introduced the concept, but others would do it better, and Ren and Stimpy was around for much longer so therefore it would stick with more people.

One other thing that keeps me at a distance is the drag. It's just me, but most of the time I feel like most jokes and scenes go on for an eternity. Now granted, it can work to great effect like in Sven Hoek, other times I'm thinking that if John had not been bothered, we would've had the equivalent of A Third Dad Cartoon where nothing happens until the very end, and it's not even to make a point.

I'm just saying, you can trim out gaps of nothing or more of the same happening and nothing would be lost. Suspense and comedy don't always go well together, either that or John sucks at it. Artists should be allowed creative freedom, but John doesn't deserve it, Cans Without Labels and Adult Party Cartoon demonstrate just as much.

Games

I had said I may be biased against John early on because he flagged down one of my videos, well the favor is also extended to Games... because I saw a Games era episode first. Lair of the Lummox to be exact. I'm aware the season has its bad episodes, and there are some episodes I don't like. Either I got lucky and was exposed to episodes generally agreed upon to be good, or I just didn't have any quality standard set because I got into the series so late in the game.

For a lot of the episodes in this period, it seems like a lot of them are used by the animators to vent their frustrations about John. Stimpy's Cartoon Show proved to be one of the era's best episodes because of it. However, when it comes to trying to keep with the spirit of the older seasons, they were in a lose-lose situation. If they tried to do their own thing, the fans would hate it, if they tried to replicate what the older seasons had, the fans would hate it.

I can't possibly defend the entire period, but I can say I enjoyed what I saw of it, and I feel more comfortable returning to it than the Spumco era.

Separation

Some may suggest that I should separate the art from the artist, but that is difficult when it comes to Spumco. John played Ren, he put in a stark majority of himself into the character. It came to a head in Adult Party Cartoon, and we've seen how horrible he was to work with even in his prime. I can't possibly view Spumco episodes with any ounce of good faith. I won't hold it against anyone who's the opposite, but there you go.

Whether people want to admit it or not, maybe Ren and Stimpy was better off without John K., and Bob Camp is the true genius behind it.