This bird's gonna fly

Due to a lack of feedback on here (I blame me), along with the fact that I post reviews on three sites at a time, I'm gonna downsize a bit.

From now on, I'll be posting reviews exclusively on Manic-Expression and deviantArt. I'm leaving links to both so on the off chance you've been following this blog and just came to visit, eh fuck it, bug me elsewhere.

https://www.deviantart.com/channeleven

http://www.manic-expression.com/members/channe1even/

Longshot review

Never ask about my taste in music.

The late-90s and early-2000s had a certain unique flavor when it came to music (well among other things.) I'm not saying music nowadays is crap (though to be fair, some songs do reek), but it didn't hold as much variety. In the 90s/2000s, we had a little bit of everything, alternative rock and southeners who want to worm their way into teen culture, nu metal (though to be fair some bangers sufficed), and of course(?), pop groups. Won't name any just yet, but there was, well duh, a time when these bands were inescapable, and nobody knew this better than their record label.

So to further bank on their names and because these people know the only thing keeping them out of a McDonalds uniform was trying to keep some presence on the charts, they tried (or were forced into) acting. Some were able to pull it off, Justin Timberlake I guess, but others... I mean you tell me. And we owe a big skid mark in their careers to Lou Pearlman, more in a bit.

The film was directed by Lionel C. Martin of Queens, New York, represent, a music video director who some may recognize for directing the music video for Biz Markie's Just a Friend, as well as videos for certain artists who wound up appearing in this film. This is also one of two movies Martin directed. Before, he helmed How to Be a Player, a film backed by Def Jam Records which wasn't any better.

I can't blame Martin for this, because he wasn't the one who ran countless names through the ringer. That honor goes to Lou Pearlman. Pearlman represented practically every artist who appeared in this film, only to get done in by a Ponzi scheme in 2006, where he would die in custody about ten years later, against a 25 year sentence. Also found a parallel to Colonel Tom Parker, both exploited their connections to their artists by releasing albums under their own labels, Parker on the infamous spoken word album Havin' Fun With Elvis on Stage and the soundtrack to this film was released on Pearlman's own label.

Among the artists featured are Britney Spears (who I admittedly have some respect for due to most of her songs being more clever than I gave them credit for), O-Town (who many of you may know for that one song) NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Aaron Carter (who is better known nowadays for flip flopping on his political views) and those are just the names I recognize. But wait, there's more. They also got some regular celebrities in this too.

Gilbert Gottfried was in this (then again, he also appeared in an Angry Video Game Nerd episode, then again he is also on Cameo.com so James Rolfe probably shelled out enough money to warrant a grander appearance), Dwayne Johnson apparently appeared in this too, we even get appearances from Screech and Lisa from Saved by the Bell. Also, Danielle Fishel appears in this, aka Topanga from Boy Meets World, aka that one girl from Gamebox 1.0 that Brutalmoose covered, and she even appeared in an episode of The Nightmare Room which I covered a while back. She has such a familiar face.

The film was produced on a budget of over 20 million dollars, though it never received a theatrical release. It was aired on Disney Channel and later got a home video release through a company too obscure to mention.

Before I go any further, the above and this were written before I saw the film. Sometimes I go into something thinking I'd hate it, but I find that I just overreacted. On the other hand, a pop group oriented movie is giving me flashbacks to School Gyrls, which I consider to be the worst movie I've ever seen. I don't know how bad this movie could be, but I'd like to consider it better than School Gyrls by default.

Now enough rambling, here's some more rambling

Going into this, you'd think that this movie would center entirely on one of the aforementioned musicians, and you'd be wrong. The artists only appear in what amounts to cameo roles. We gotta place some focus on a young boy who's brother happens to be a gigolo, who isn't Deuce Bigalow. Plus basketball, and being in New York City. If I ask these producers what Albany is I doubt I'll get a straight answer. Ironically, while lower budget productions set in New York often get shot in Vancouver, this movie was shot in Toronto. I have a gut feeling it's cheaper to produce something in Ontario than it is in British Columbia, unless they wanted to be cutting edge.

The film starts with a prologue featuring members of the band O-Town, and as someone who's finger is far from the pulse of musical culture, I admittedly had to look it up. My only clue is that one of the members was referred to by name. In what seems to be a meta joke, the band watches a bunch of obnoxious assholes who even I can't understand who're giving away free copies of the film we're watching.

In some twisted way, this wouldn't make the movie much better, but here's an idea. What if this movie was about a boyband starring in a movie and it's just them watching and riffing on it the whole time? It may be crap, but at least it'd give a sign of a sense of humor on an executive's part. To be fair, they try to incorporate that, but the way they go about it, it just amounts to a funny little thing they do before the movie starts. Perhaps the almighty dollar wasn't enough to make O-Town satisfied.

Then we get to the good shit. B-ball. I will say this, going by the cold open and a general idea on how the actual movie starts, I have more confidence with this than School Gyrls, and this is my first time seeing it. Anyway, rather than establishing our main character right out of the gate, we start with the conflict at hand, him playing a game that unknown to him, would play a big part in his social standing.

After some padding, which suggests that the director believes nobody knows what basketball is, we get a sloppy introduction to the main, Alex. I'm aware that he's about to fuck up because, aside from the fact that if he didn't there'd be no drive to the plot, they spell it out. The coach claims that Alex has the kind of shot capable of evening (or exceeding) the score. If you weren't able to predict a downfall, this is very likely the first basketball-related movie you've ever seen, if not your first exposure to movies.

I don't know if it's better or worse they get the conflict going right away. On one hand, it's over and done with, on the other, it's the first quarter and it may get worse or nowhere at all, and on another hand that sprouted out of nowhere, we could've had a nothing or crap establishment scene(s) before this one.

All I really got from that was reaffirmation that only idiots take sports that seriously. Too offensive? Well how about sports are a case for the theory of evolution. I say while typing away and sitting on my bed. Also pizza...

Up next we see Justin Timberlake as a valet getting scolded and fulfilling his cameo quota. He manages to fuck with his boss by relaying orders to another valet, i.e. the opposite of what not to do. The acting is mediocre in this, though Timberlake looks as though he's trying his best. I did catch one thing, the music overpowers the dialog in short bursts. It's N*SYNC, but Timberlake pretends he doesn't recognize it. Better than stroking his ego, I mean I guess it's better, then again he isn't the star and it's all about getting the music out on a shallow husk of a movie. Then we get narration out of nowhere, and I get the idea that the movie was made on the basis that every minute of it was its last. The narration comes from the brother who's getting mental tail as a fitness trainer, and may be on the onset of Salmonella as he goes for the number one fitness stereotype in the book, drinking a glass of raw eggs. 

Gilbert Gottfried comes in, and, okay, he's in his element. With that kind of voice the element of surprise is gone. After dealing with some assholes, one of which being dead by 101 in 2015 Ellen Albertina Dow, we see Alex and Topanga and we get some good ol' awkwardness. Then again, this is carried out better than in Reanimated, though it's still dull. It gets cut off by some bitch, though this bitch automatically has more likability than Bambi (School Gyrls), only because she doesn't have as many lines.

Back to the brother, we get an introduction to his gigolo work, along with a desperate meta joke about how this is some dumb cheesy teen movie with a lot of cameos. The joke alone is better than any of the fourth wall breaks in The Garfield Show, and I really hope this is the last time I compare anything to this movie. Anyhow, what's the one thing a forgettable yet idiotically cheesy needs? Why an over-the-top villain of course. The brother gets assaulted by two thugs, yada yada blows his car up, car chase through the city, helicopter, all just to get to the villain's mansion, Laszlo Price.

Along with an incredibly lazy name, Price's drive is that one of the brother's clients was his wife. For renumeration, Jack (and why did I take so long to say his name) is forced to take on a client who has a connection to a failing business, less he wants to get baseballs perpetually launched into his testicles. Price comes off as uncaring yet somehow hammy at the same time. Of course Jack seems to care just as little, which is why this is the only thing he has ever worked on, and he wrote and produced it. Though something tells me he wants to make Alex sound better by comparison, which he does by the way.

However, in spite of caring less than Alex, Jack has a more interesting plot on paper, Alex just goes through the high school drama checklist.

Then it occurred to me, I don't really need to go any further. It's a trainwreck, but not a must-see kind of trainwreck. I cut out early, not because it was that bad, but because it was actually kinda boring. The copy I saw was divided into ten parts, I got a few minutes into the third. The movie essentially peaked too early.

Overall

With a mediocre atmosphere, some familiar faces and exploitation of stars in the right areas, along with a small sense of bearability, this movie is mostly better than School Gyrls. Whether or not I sit through anything all the way through shouldn't matter. The only reason I bothered seeing the latter all the way through was because I did so when it was new.

I also bothered to watch that film in its entirety because I felt like I struck gold; I found my own worst movie ever, one that hasn't really been touched yet, so I needed to get as many details from it as possible for a cohesive review (as with MP4ORCE). For this, it seems like the perfect "worst ever" film, going by how it was made, but really, this is just a mediocre movie.

Somehow this film feels more like a ponzi scheme with more legal intentions. They promoted a movie that involved various artists, well the songs were played and the artists themselves appeared in some capacity. I don't know what anyone would've expected from something like this, if they wanted more money they should've pushed for a theatrical release.

Did this movie entice me to check out the artists present? I already know about many of these, so this movie is lost on me. I think the producers behind this would've been fucked no matter what route they took.

Pauly review

Say what you will about Pauly Shore, at least Bio-Dome has an audience of sorts. Pauly Shore is basically a very one-note comedian, performing that note as off-key as he possibly could. However, when it comes to throwing shit at him, it feels more like an obligation, like someone wants to immediately set up a negative perspective on something they're about to review. While I do agree Pauly Shore is shit, he didn't appear in Norm of the North (and I bring that up because Rob Schneider was the biggest star they could get, call it desperation.), no one knew how bad Bio-Dome would be and that would apply to a potential TV series. Which happened.

Pauly

In 1997, Pauly Shore made his first foray into sitcom territory. For better or worse, the show wound up on Fox, and something tells me the big three would've somehow made it worse had they picked it up. The show is part of a sub-genre related to sitcoms that have the first name of their stars (Jenny, Freddie, Sammy, Ellen, Emeril, if you could figure out what I'm referring to... eh screw it, you all probably just googled it)

Whatever'd be said about this show coming up, just know it wasn't necessarily a vanity project. Pauly starred in and produced it, but he didn't create it. The show was created by James Berg and Stan Zimmerman. Both have worked together quite frequently prior to this series, working on The Golden Girls (hey, I'm getting The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer vibes here), Roseanne, Gilmore Girls and A Very Brady Sequel.

Okay, this is too big of a coincidence, for Pauly and Pfeiffer, they were created by two individuals, both of which had worked on The Golden Girls as well as a movie from 1996, and their respective sitcoms blew. Well at least Berg and Zimmerman received WGA nominations for their work on Golden Girls. Maybe they just couldn't salvage Shore.

Anyway, they produced this show, Shore did as well and they were represented through 3 Arts Entertainment, who within the same year helped bring us King of the Hill.

Seven episodes were made, but only five of which wound up airing. The show was very short-lived, even by Fox standards, then again this was only not even a year after Bio-Dome was released. Going back to Pfeiffer, the two episodes that didn't air were both directed by Matthew Diamond, and he directed the Pfeiffer episodes that did air. Maybe Fox did us a service.

Anyhow, Pauly fever was low to the point of nonexistence. It's essentially lost media, with only one episode available. The pilot was briefly available, but the channel it was posted on got terminated, and the only evidence of that is a logo combo from the end of it. It's a recurring trend for lost sitcoms, their episodes aren't on YouTube, but the logo combos sure are. We have a chance at preserving lost media, and all we aim for are the logos.

Aside from Pauly, this is the first I heard of many of the main actors on this. The show included Theo Greenly from Jerry Maguire, David Dukes who would pass away in 2000 and Amy Hill, who's the Asian equivalent to Hattie McDaniel in that she's most likely found as a maid in her roles.

Premise

Going by recurring summaries for the show at large, the series centers on Pauly, who's living it up in California with his rich dad. He had recently been hooked by a gold digger and Pauly wants to ruin their relationship because... He wants to get in the golddigger's pants? He realizes that she wants more from his dad than what she promised? He hates his dad and wants to make his life miserable by ruining his chance at love? Okay, I only have one episode to go by, and it's not the pilot, so unless someone managed to save the copy of that before it got deleted, I'm gonna be lost.

The one surviving episode features Pauly getting swooned by a woman who happened to be a co-star for the golddigger's adult film days, and the golddigger threw her his way to keep him from ruining her plan to get a celebrity spokesperson for a vein cause.

I saw this episode once, and recently as well. Nothing stuck with me from it, not even Pauly's obnoxious comedy. Would it be good or bad that I forgot about Pauly Shore in this? I can piece together fragments of most of the characters, and the only one I forgot cold turkey was David Dukes' character.

Basically, what unites Pauly and the golddigger is that the faux fiance the latter found intends to exploit Pauly's father in order to live lavishly for the rest of her life, so the latter's celebrity spokesperson deal comes into play. Previously, she sent her son (and by extent Pauly's stepbrother) to find a schoolmate with a celebrity parent.

What did we get out of that? Erik Estrada, though to be fair this is a better gig than what he did on Cool Cat Saves the Kids. They had tried to find a fake celebrity to get rid of the fiance, but Estrada wasn't it, and they're left with a fake Michael Jackson.

Basically, Pauly's attitude makes up a bulk of the episode, they make some attempt at visual humor, but I could only recall one gag from the cold open. Maybe deep down I really hate Pauly Shore and I blocked this episode from my memory. And since this is a comedy with no grounded continuity, it's just a matter of one episode to inspire confidence to check out the rest of the series... and frankly I'm in no hurry.

Overall

This is another one of those short-ass-fuck reviews, or as I'd like to call it, another reminder that something existed. So, is there anything nice I could say about this show? Well the intro was good, and given Pauly's level of comedy it's saying a hell of a lot. I didn't quit the episode early so I guess I was able to stomach Pauly throughout, then again I'm in no hurry to see the episode again.

Now this leaves one of those ever famous questions. Is this worse than The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer? Honestly, no. Why compare both shows? Again, created by duos who worked on The Golden Girls.

At the very least, Pauly was just a thing of its own, a vehicle for a comedian who had been on thin ice at this point. It was a shot at the dark for him to regain some footing in the comedy industry, and did it prevail? Well sorta. He tried his hand at voice acting and some lesser known family films, but he didn't get as lucky as Adam Sandler (say what you will, but Sandler knows what he's doing). Pfeiffer went on an offensive route and did nothing to commentate on it. Plus its comedy sucked ass.

Perhaps it's for the best that this series remains obscure, Shore has gone through enough grief as is, because at the end of the day, he didn't appear in Norm of the North.

The Brothers Flub review

Compared to the what the big three had geared out over the years, Nickelodeon had to have some of the most infamous cartoons, bar none. The worst Cartoon Network did was, what? Thundercats Roar? (and if I don't bring up the quality shows I rag on, I don't have to bring up the popular ragging targets) For Disney I don't think anyone remembers (two nuts one shell and euphemism), and I actually didn't hate Fish Hooks, then again I don't hate Mabel Pines either.

But when Nickelodeon fucks up, nobody forgets it. They lack hindsight and foresight when it comes to many of their decisions (that or people embellish something flawed in the hopes of getting famous for it.) The only smart thing they ever did in their more recent years was turn down Adventure Time (and there goes that promise.) But even for Nickelodeon's worst decisions, we remember them years later, I mean even if it wasn't a desired impact, they still left some kind of impact.

But what if a show sucks so hard it gets forgotten about, and only acknowledged fleetingly for ragging?

The Brothers Fallopian Tube

The Brothers Flub turned up on Nickelodeon in 1999 and got burned off nearly a year later in 2000 (it started and ended the same month, but nine days before crossing the one year mark). The show had two creators, one who did nothing before or after this, and another who used to work at Klasky Csupo as a background and character designer. He also worked on an animated short that got mentioned by RebelTaxi, the short being Bojack Horseman several years in the past.

Speaking of RebelTaxi, a key reason people know about this show is because he talked about it in one of his videos. That, and MrEnter included the theme song in a countdown for some of the worst theme songs ever. In watching an episode to make sure I get the gist of it, I had to sit through the song and to sum up... it's noise, just pure, unadulterated noise.

Just to prove this show aired on Nickelodeon, here's a promo.

Anyway, the show's backstory is fairly interesting, well to me it's interesting. It's an American/German co-production, and Germany is known for high-budget/high-quality productions. They gave us Uwe Boll (then again his non major efforts are technically better), helped fund Warner Bros.' crappy syndicated programs and gave us MP4ORCE, a show so bad you'd have a hard time ironically liking it just to poke fun at me sperging over it. Germany's participation in this stems from funding through Ravensburger, a board game and toy manufacturer. In spite of their roots, they didn't gear out merchandise, and I bring that up because it actually happened.

The show was produced by Sunbow Productions, a company with an implacably sad tale backing it. Sunbow started out producing cartoons in the 80s, being best recognized for producing the Transformers and My Little Pony cartoons, as well as their respective movies, Bucky O' Hare, Jem and the Holograms, G.I. Joe. and The Tick, going by notable ones.

They were a respectable firm back in the day, but by the late-90s, without guidance from Hasbro it became clear that Sunbow were thirsty for original ideas. From 1997, they produced two forgettable educational programs, one ranks lowly while the other was likely forgotten, in 1998 they produced Fat Dog Mendoza, which never aired outside of Europe (though admittedly I found myself watching more episodes of that than I thought I would), then this. Afterwards, we got Generation O!, which... well it has an interesting style and I did make it through every episode I've watched from it, though I doubt I could recommend it to anyone, and it all ended with The Cramp Twins, which they couldn't even keep up with. I used to like that show but now I hate it, if you accuse me of hating it for that reason, the shows I defend had class.

While this came after Fat Dog Mendoza, that show wasn't as known so it couldn't have left that big of an impact, this was the first Sunbow show to lay the seeds for the end. Only thing more ambiguous about this show is its merchandising. While this show was in production, merchandise was immediately prepped for it. You know, TV shows usually come after a toyline or whatever gets popular, or vice versa.

It wasn't toys (well separately) this show dished out, going by brand promotions, there was a KFC kids meal, branding for trays at Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, yo-yos with children's vitamins from GNC, appearances in back-to-school promos at Macy's, a Skechers deal, and I'm starting to doubt these actually happened, because if it did, someone would've filed for bankruptcy. There were also two four episode tapes released through Sony Wonder, Nickelodeon's former video distributor and then owner of Sunbow, and I know that happened because a VHS cover for that appears on its Wikipedia page.

Apparently, Sunbow's reputation was still stable at the time, because a marketing push for something ambiguous at the time didn't get questioned.

The show featured a roster of well known voice actors, many of which had worked on Klasky Csupo shows in the past. Aside from them, we also had Scott Menville, Sally Struthers, Richard Horvitz, Nick Bakay, Tom Kenny, Vanessa Marshall (or Irwin as I know her), and Harvey Korman apparently. I'm calling bull on this cast, but I'm pointing it out because it caught me by surprise. If the cast list is anything to go by, Kath Soucie surprisingly didn't appear in this, and I only bring her up because she tends to appear in a lot of things and was also a regular in Klasky Csupo's programs. Respect. But wanna know who did appear in this? Candi Milo, someone I hate for no particular reason aside from how often she pops up.

Charlie Adler worked as a voice director on this. Just thought I'd let you know.

Premise

The show is non-serialized. It centers on the misadventures of two alien delivery boys and trouble they face at their home base or in worlds they deliver to. Each world is themed around one particular thing, which sounds interesting on paper, but anyone could make up worlds where one thing is the central focus.

Some may call this a rip-off of Futurama because of the delivery aspect, but this came first by a few months. Then again, it's not like Futurama has aliens- well aside from Kif, but aliens aren't the focal point in the delivery crew- well Zoidberg and maybe Amy Wong, well it's not like Futurama goes to separate worl- well planets but it's mostly the same and the worlds are better fleshed out because its Futurama, and don't worry, I still love Futurama, even though people think Pixels ripped it off (it didn't, it was just a crappy movie.)

The characters don't go beyond stereotypes you'd find in other shows. To sum up, fat idiot, annoying skinny guy, levelheaded girl, fat boss, drawing a blank with all else. To put this into perspective, I can remember and identify characters from Sunbow's other later shows, well for the most part. Okay, for the sake of helping people follow along, the fat idiot and annoying skinny guy are Guapo and Fraz respectively.

Their bickering makes up a bulk of the conflicts in nearly every episode, because that's the easiest way for anyone to make up a plot. They don't do much to help make the episode stand out, well aside from padding with annoying dialog to fulfill a runtime quota.

An episode I saw centered on the last slice of pizza. For those of you thinking I'm gonna continue a running gag where I bring up The Loud House, especially because of one of their pilot shorts and assume I'm gonna make a rip-off allegation with that, the episode is radically different, and it came first. No, this episode has sentient pizza toppings on an old pizza shrink Fraz and Guapo down and we see they've created a full society. This basically ripped off an episode of The Simpsons which ripped off an episode of The Twilight Zone. It took seven minutes to get to this point, with the only thing holding it together being hunger and annoying dialog.

Not to mention, I predicted what the ending would've been like and, I was wrong. I expected the toppings to grow back with them once they got to the shrink ray, then a monster they carried with their cargo would eat the sentient pizza toppings, but instead, the pizza with everyone on it gets eaten, and then spit back up, with the shrink ray wearing off and nobody getting eaten. The episode would've sucked either way.

This was one of two segments on the episode I saw. I had no interest in seeing the other, so you could say this episode didn't fill me with confidence.

Animation

Some have accused this show of trying to rip off Klasky Csupo's style. A key reason why I bring up background trivia is because these things can likely get answered. It looks like a Klasky Csupo show because one of the creators worked as a designer for the company before making this. And since Klasky Csupo is so associated with Nickelodeon... on second thought it sounds like it'd lead to redundancy.

The animation is nothing special, it doesn't stand out from other Nicktoons, or on its own either. The fact that it tries to emulate Klasky Csupo's style makes it feel like a wolf in sheep's clothing. Not to mention, the animation itself is stiff and very limited, and I even caught a lip-synching error. The art direction is so shallow that I couldn't help but look for errors.

Overall

If the rest of the show was anything like the episode I've seen, I can safely say this show deserves to be forgotten. It seems Nickelodeon shared that sentiment whole-heartedly, they didn't co-produce it and they did nothing with the characters later on down the line. It got to the point that Nickelodeon's license on the show expired, something that wound up happening to Pelswick as well, though that was a Canadian import which somehow got as much promotion as Nick's original productions at the time.

Oh yeah, this show sucks too.

Ultimate Avengers review (blind)

And by blind, I mean I'm going by my memory on this.

If you're curious about my stance on the Avengers movies, I respect them, I feel that their box office records and praise is well deserved, but I'm just not much of a Marvel fan. The only Marvel films I like are the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy, Hulk and Deadpool 2.

The new Avengers films are generally fun, but I'd like to remind you that this wasn't the only time the Avengers reared their head onto any screen, and I'm not saying there's some obscure 90s TV movie based on the Avengers (though I wish there was.), though it's been a little over a decade since these came out.

The year is 2006, Marvel had reached their fifth year in their original cinematic universe, and at this point they wanted to do more. Perhaps to extend their reach, Marvel decided to dip their feet into the direct-to-video market and had released eight films between 2006 and 2011 through LionsGate, back when they weren't the kind of company that'd release just about anything, and by anything I mean a Dinesh D'Souza documentary, Alpha and Omega (and their bastard children), Norm of the North, and I could go deeper.

Ultimate Avengers was the first to be released, with a sequel immediately following the same year. I had caught the second on Cartoon Network years ago and remembered it, but I could never figure out the title. Once I did, I decided to seek out both films (coincidentally, around the same time I tried rewatching Mosaic, another Cartoon Network film I saw in the late-2000s)

I felt nothing, this goes for all three. So I'm going to cover both films. For them, I'm primarily going by memory, you can just go by plot fragments and nothing of value would be lost.

Ultimate Avengers

The first Ultimate Avengers movie primarily exists to establish the roster of Marvel characters that'd be used, with a thin conflict wrapper to get them altogether. Among the Marvel characters used are The Hulk, Ant Man, Wasp, Thor and Captain America. All get approached by Nick Fury to unite to take down an alien threat.

I might've said this a million times already, but in case I didn't, my biggest hangup with the action genre is that it's incredibly formulaic, moreso than any other genre. At least with horror we have satirical versions along with comedic ones, and for comedy, we have dark comedy and stabs at tropes. Here, this is an action plot down to the bone and just barely scrapping past the marrow.

The only thing that could save this is its characters and... let's see.

Captain America is portrayed as is, full stop. He had fought in World War II and was frozen solid during combat, only to be thawed out years later, where he comes to the realization that his faction isn't immortal, and we had no survivors, they all died. At least with the Munchkins from Wizard of Oz, or the Little Rascals, we had some survivors.

This gives me so many mixed messages. Is this meant to cause an existential crisis for Captain America where he realizes that he is essentially cursed due to him being a super soldier? Well the way I saw it, this had little of an effect on him. He holds the same mentality any generic hero would on team-oriented deals. Plus his girlfriend is still alive in this.

Is this meant to be some anti-war kind of message? Because I really don't want it to be, Spec Ops: The Line would make this obsolete six years later.

There's Thor, who now works on a fishing boat and drinks. It seems he's the designated comic relief here, but it feels kinda forced here. A highlight to his first appearance is him incorporating two belches in a verbal middle finger to a team-up proposition. A theme around this is that the heroes say no to the team-up, at least in the better known films, they get together and voice their aggressions.

Then we have Ant Man, and boy, nobody favored Ant Man. I don't know what S.H.I.E.L.D. did to him, but man, he is a dick. It gets old very quickly, to the point you'd want him to become a casualty, but don't lose that thought just yet.

Also we have Wasp, and my main hang-up with her is her voice acting. Wasp is played by Grey DeLisle, using one of many of her incredibly known voices. In a nutshell, imagine Daphne Blake cosplaying as Wasp. This could've been a good opportunity to do some against-typing, but she didn't deliver. I don't consider DeLisle to be one of my favorite voice actresses, at least Nika Futterman stuck to what she was good at and has a unique voice while Kath Soucie is more of the same and has good range with it. If you hadn't figured it out, I can't say much about Wasp other than that she's a bland foil to Ant Man.

Then there's Black Widow, basically has, well some sort of accent, don't want to jump to conclusions since I'm basically going by memory here. From what I remember, there's some romantic kindling between her and Captain America (or is it Iron Man, I forget.) Don't remember, don't care to, but the fact that I could remember everyone else may be building to something more major here.

I completely forgot about Iron Man in this, don't shoot me, but I don't even remember him much, if at all, in this movie. How is it that I forgot Iron Man when I could recall everyone else in this?

Lastly, there's the Hulk, traveling the downtrodden path of trying to get control of his savage form. Now sure, that is integral to his character, but why not try and bring back what happened in the Pantheon saga, where he had successfully merged his human and hulk personalities.

In the past they were able to incorporate comedy into Hulk's adaptations, which alleviated the dark and predictable aspects regarding the circumstances behind his powers (every Hulk cartoon up to this point.) because let's face it, we know inner turmoil is as dark as it is predictable. This movie is dark, so their portrayal of Hulk is predictable. A scientist dulled by the world around him, to the point he places his own priorities over all else and fucking over a plan to attack an arriving alien race just for his own good.

In other words, I hate everybody here, and I'm saving an obvious analogy for the end.

A good reason I bring up the characters now is that a stark majority of the film is spent establishing the characters. Not their origin stories, but rather where they are now. I don't know if it's done from scratch or continuing from a comic arc I couldn't be bothered to know about, but that's the entirety of this film. Heck, the alien invasion just amounts to a typical action battle.

As I watched the film, in the back of my head, I wanted so bad for it to be a film based around the Hulk. In trying to control his form, after a false sense of hope, Banner loses it in combat and winds up getting detained. If they're going for the "rage is too strong" business, yeah, that's a whole other downtrodden path.

And for the sake of running it for more mileage, they sack up and unite as a team.

You know, I think I saw a story like this in just about every dark niche superhero team origin story. Or maybe they just didn't make good use of it here. These team-establishing joints face the same problems, too much glut when it comes to establishing key players and their relationships. They could've easily just made separate films to establish each member, then have them come together. It'd mean they could easily appeal to fans of each hero with their own solitary films and give Marvel more money. The fact that the sequel only came months after shows it could've been done.

Ultimate Avengers 2: The Boogaling

Before I discuss the plot, I'd like to bring something up. This was the Ultimate Avengers movie I saw on Cartoon Network years ago, and I watched this when I revisited the two films a while back. To put this into perspective, I remembered everything but the title of Mosaic, I had seen bits and pieces of the second animated Hellboy movie and I remembered those pieces I saw.

I can hardly remember much about this film aside from a few key aspects. Call it ridiculous that I wouldn't go back to watch the film to get a better understanding, I'd call it a sign that this is the most forgettable of the two, because I didn't have as hard of a time going by memory on what happened in the previous film.

From what I remember, this movie's antagonists were the Skrulls, or some kind of shapeshifters. They receive help from Black Panther to take down the threat and Bruce Banner is held for questioning regarding the events of his rampage. Some of the less important characters get Infinity Stoned and Banner is gassed to death, later Hulking out and realizing how much of a threat he is.

Then Ant Man dies and I get super pissed off. I didn't like Ant Man in this, which is why I glossed over a plot point involving him in the previous film; he wanted to modify his suit to allow him to grow big, and at that point he becomes Giant Man. Due to the suit's affect on his body chemistry, he winds up dying in conflict, and we're apparently supposed to feel emotional?

Ant Man had been a pain in the ass since the start. Killing him off felt more like a favor to the audience or a false sense of belief that he truly sacrificed himself for the greater good. It felt hollow to me and left so little to think about. Sacrificials are moderately easy to pull off, and they really missed the mark, either by going the most obvious route or making it so that the death is ruined by the fact that we'd recall how much of a dick Ant Man was in this.

I know what you're thinking: "You're just being a dick, we don't know what S.H.I.E.L.D. did to Ant Man whether it followed a pre-existing comic arc or something that was exclusive to this universe, and dying for the grater good should be separate from who the departed was, besides could you think of someone better to kill off?"

Why yes, Wasp. Think about it. Wasp was Ant Man's closest rooter. If Wasp was the sacrificial character, Ant Man would use this as an opportunity to rethink his attitude, mature, and become the best damn superhero he can be. It's cliched, but I'm going against what feels like an ever-typical dark superhero film. Gotta fight fire with fire.

Animation

Was the animation that good?

Does this look good?

How about this?

I'm no fan of the style here. It looks rather ugly, and somehow bland too. The animation was produced by Dong Woo Animation, who was also behind the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon and the first three seasons of The Boondocks. I don't know why, but the animation here just feels off to me. Nothing exactly stands out, and I have a feeling I've seen a show with a similar art direction to this before.

But I guess this gritty art direction compliments the gritty tone of the two films. If they screened this at theaters, a slaughter would've been imminent.

Overall

When this was new, it was fairly popular, but now that the new Avengers movies are out, this had been knocked to another footnote in Marvel's history, and frankly has little to show for it. I complain about Avatar, but nowadays I do respect it to some degree (though I'm no fan of it.), as schizophrenic as Teen Titans was it was still memorable. If you're sick of me ragging on both shows, I think I found a new target.

Ultimate Avengers 1 and 2 are honestly some of the most bland, forgettable films I've ever seen. Even after a single reviewing of each, I can't even remember that much of it. Once more, a key reason why I hate action is that they tend to rely on certain tropes more often than other genres, often going beat for beat. This is the best possible example of an action cartoon that follows the cliches, or at least feels like it does. It's not darker than other action cartoons, it's not cheesy in a good way, even its art style is incredibly bland and kinda ugly.

In other words, this is basically the Avengers if it was directed by Zack Snyder.

Neighbors from Hell review/TBS Mini-retrospective

Believe it or not, but back in the late-2000s, I used to watch TBS, and since it was around that time, I caught their more interesting programs. Since a lot of these are live action shows that normally don't get cleared for free viewing online, it's best I sum them up right away.

TBS at this time were all about sitcoms, which were somehow more grounded than what you'd find on the major networks. Did you know there was a TV show based on an Ice Cube movie from years ago starring Terry Crews? Are We There Yet? Because that happened. I remember it happening and for some reason I remember the conclusion of two episodes, one where the dad and his son got into a bet relating to sports and the other where he walks in on his kids using night-vision goggles. The fact that I only remember fragments of it should say numbers.

There was also The Bill Engvall Show, which gives me the idea that TBS were all about familycoms back then. Bill Engvall is one of those lighter-hearted country comedians, and that sentiment extended to his show. If that aired today it wouldn't make it past the pilot, then again Last Man Standing not only survived but thrived, and Roseanne only got knocked off because of someone's case of racial dysphoria.

Then Tyler Perry, Tyler Perry Tyler Perry... One wasn't enough, so we got two. House of Payne, which is ongoing, on BET. There's also Meet the Browns, which tied into the Madea films. I suddenly have the desire to see an episode of The Boondocks where Tyler Perry's shows are confronted directly, at least Thousand Dollar Bee was on an obscure network.

Aside from those shows, all else I had to look forward two were reruns of The Office and Family Guy.

And for those who're gonna inevitably (but unlikely since I typically only get feedback when I cover what people know) ask if I've seen TBS' latest, I'll just sum it up, because I don't have the interest. There's one show that, for the life of me, I can't remember the name of, but the trailer didn't wow me.

There's also Final Space, but if that's ongoing, it's best I get my philosophy on binge-watching out of the way. I don't do binging, I just can't make that kind of commitment. I hardly watch television anymore and I don't use Netflix (because there're no shows I want to watch on there.), plus if it's continuity based, that means I have a whole arc to get through just to know what happens and if I just go by one episode, I'm bound to piss people off.

And there's the big one, for those who know how much of a coronary the creator and his other work gives me. Close Enough. Now let me ask, does anyone even know that show exists? I've only seen one video in my recommendations so far of a single trailer. I'm no fan of J.G. Quintel's style, so I'm just gonna skip it. Hey, would you rather I do everything in my power to trash it, or do you want me to just say I'm not interested?

Now, there was one other show I watched the hell out of back when it was new, and that's what I'm gonna be covering.

Neighbors from Hell

On the air, I had seen all but the first episode, I think I was busy the day the show debuted, but yeah, I was around for plenty. I actually did catch the first episode later on down the line, and, not ashamed to admit, I've recently caught a few select episodes online for one straight constant viewing. I don't know if it was because of nostalgia, but the fact that I never ducked out at any point means the show had something special, but I can't tell what it was.

The show was spearheaded by Pam Brady, a producer who got her start (well, start after a stint on The John Larroquette Show) working with Trey Parker and Matt Stone. She worked as a writer on South Park for its first two years and helped write South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Amy Winfrey, the creator of Making Fiends, also worked on the film as an animator, interesting piece of trivia) and Team America: World Police. Her latest work after this was Lady Dynamite, who she created alongside Mitchell Hurwitz of Arrested Development fame and Sit Down, Shut Up infamy.

Brady created and produced this show, accounting for her Wounded Poodle vanity card, which she also used for The Loop, another notable on her part. The show was also worked on by DreamWorks of all companies, but under a pseudonym, MoonBoy Animation. For those of you who watched this show to the end when it first aired, if you caught this logo, the first thing that may pop into your head is "Is that a DreamWorks reference?"

Apparently the story behind this is that as DreamWorks was better known for producing animation for younger audiences, they needed to keep their name separate from something dedicated more to adults, hence why this is the only time we see that logo. But I'd like to remind you, DreamWorks also produced Father of the Pride, and had their logo unobscured. Maybe it's because both shows had different styles or because DreamWorks was so hurt by Father of the Pride's suckage that they felt their name would be a big jinx? Or maybe it's because both shows used radically different animation.

Father of the Pride was done in CGI, and this was done in flash, and not by them directly. They outsourced the animation to Bento Box Entertainment, of the first season of Bob's Burgers fame and all else infamy. The show lasted for a single season of ten episodes, and for those who see red flags, the amount of episodes in the first season depend solely on network orders. Sometimes they order as little as six episodes, sometimes they order as much as twenty two.

Every episode aired on TBS at least once. I don't know if the ratings were good enough to warrant a full airing of the season, or maybe TBS was the kind of network that would follow through on their promise to air a show in its entirety, or perhaps people were looking forward to seeing something that didn't have Tyler Perry's name.

Premise

I'm not going to focus too much on the characters, aside from some for the sake of context. I'm just gonna go over how they handle the sitcom schtick with its characterizations. In this, they go for a half and half approach, half of the characters are swapped by character types, others are played straight. The former half has the husband being the more levelheaded one, Balthazar and the wife is the one who causes trouble due to her own selfishness and borderline naive behavior, Tina withstanding. In the latter half, we have self-absorbed teen daughter Mandy and the fat idiot savant Josh. Perhaps to bring it full circle, we even have a talking dog who's voiced by Patton Oswalt. Kurtwood Smith is also in this as Balthazar's sadistic boss, and you know what? I'm okay with that. It's a step-up from Squirrel Boy, and Smith is in his element here.

This show is essentially 75% raunch and edge, with the remainder being a semblance of coherency. The main characters are demons from hell sent to Houston, Texas to destroy a drill that'd go down into hell and destroy it. I'll give it this, with a premise like this I can't say I saw something like this before, and for the record, Hell in this show is portrayed as being in the center of the Earth. And the only reason they're sent to Earth is because Balthazar technically has more knowledge of the human race than other demons due to watching television.

Right off the bat, I think my least favorite aspect about this show is its raunch and edginess, well in most areas. At worst, Tina and Balthazar make out at random and we get a lot of testicular jokes, and I mean A LOT, but at best, they're negligible. I mean, the show itself isn't necessarily... racist? And it's not, some people of ethnicity get hurt, but I imagine it would've happened to anybody in the show. I think the show is after a much grander prize, the entirety of humanity.

Almost every human in this show is portrayed as uncaring, often sociopathic and batshit insane. Think of the show as a mix between The Oblongs and God, The Devil and Bob, the latter having a personification for a deity from either heaven and hell, and the former representing the upper class exhibiting mass apathy for the lower class and the world.

This show is a misanthropic wet dream for those who hate the human race, they're portrayed as animal killers who give no shits about anything unless it'd further them in the fiscal food chain. Be prepared to see a lot of dead animals and animal abuse. I would say PeTA got this cancelled, but if they were involved, the show would've been taken off sooner.

On the surface, this just seems like a "mean spirited" show, but I'm detecting some subtext. In a way, this seems like the perfect pro-environmental show. Just hear me out. Rather than punishing humans for how they treat the environment, we see first hand what would happen if massive environmental mistreatment goes unchecked. Do you want to witness such carnage in the real world? Another big hint for this... why are the demons green? Green is like, environmental. So while the chaos is featured predominately, it's not necessarily encouraged. It's like an over-the-top PSA done right.

Although I imagine this would be muddled with the inclusion of one certain character. Marjoe. To sum up, she has a dog that wants to kill himself over how she treats him, and you guys obsessed over how Ren treated bugs and a frog, at least there we get that he was a sociopath. Then again, Marjoe might just be incredibly airheaded, and, blasphemous for me to say, actually kinda likable. She's annoying, but maybe she's used for a point. All I know is that while some people may single her out, I didn't find her to be that unbearable. Then again, I don't react to Adult Party Cartoon the way other people do.

Then there's the matter of how offensive it is on a religious scale. Based on the episodes I've seen, I didn't catch any knocks at Christianity, Satan is portrayed as threatening (though borrows a bit from Alan Cumming's version from God, The Devil and Bob)... I can't say it's any more offensive than Mr. Pickles, and if you think that's a knock on the quality, that show's meant to be offensive, it just comes off as repetitive on an impression basis.

They might've been going for something here, but on the off chance you can't see it, it's incredibly edgy, but it's not even the worst show to feature hell-vibes.

But wait, I almost forgot, pop culture jokes. These come in the form of then relevant musicians and movies. We got references to the Twilight films, Coldplay, Dane Cook, Lady Gaga and Britney Spears. These would date the show but... it didn't necessarily happen yet. Coldplay's still playing and I'm sure Lady Gaga is, Britney Spears may return, Dane Cook is still performing, and Twilight may still get covered in retrospective reviews.

Okay, now I'm reaching. This is a universal sin, if you include pop culture references in anything, it'd date your show. How does this show carry these out, it's like "oh this is bad, he likes this, what a douche." Admittedly, I didn't take offense to them smearing musical taste, I mean, I only like one Coldplay song, and I'm sure they were going after their post A Rush of Blood to the Head releases. Also Guitar Hero and text messaging. We all still use our phones nowadays, and I think people are dodging Guitar Hero because... Activision.

Animation

Not bad

As mentioned before, this was done in flash, so I can't really hold this to that high of a standard, and it doesn't matter as long as it looks good. Allow me to pick one of my favorite buzzwords that isn't nuance, interesting. It doesn't look horrible by any means. When it comes to gratuity, there should be some focus toward the other extreme. It's a look at the worst of humanity with a visual style that's easy on the eyes.

Look at Legend of Chamberlain Heights and then complain to me about how bad this show supposedly looks.

Overall

I think there's more to this show than it being a raunchy feast for the eyes. One reason I'm not as hard on comedy is that at times, they can give you a lot more to think about. But if you're still not convinced, it's not as cheap as Legend of Chamberlain Heights, it's somehow less raunchy than Brickleberry, and somehow, I'm willing to sit through any of its episodes.

Am I insane? Or is there something special about this?

Spike TV's Animated Shows

The Paramount Network through its inception alone is very interesting. Would you believe me if I told you Paramount had been struggling to make a television network since the beginning? Originally owning a stake in an old broadcast network, they would later try to make their own network in the 80s, but failed. Along with owning some broadcast stations, they would later get their wish with UPN, but given that there's more bile on that network than gems, maybe it wasn't for the best.

But hell, before Paramount Network, its predecessors had an interesting history themselves. They started out as a country-oriented network before it began to try and compete with other cable networks, and then it became Spike TV. Now, I tend to show interest in animated shows airing on networks that predominantly show live-action, but during the time Spike launched, they attempted a dedicated animation block to original cartoons, and I'm gonna discuss the impressions I get from one episode of each, along with some background trivia.

As an aside, I'm going to talk about Spike shows that made it to air. I'm not going to discuss Immigrants since that came out as a movie.

Stripperella

Stripperella was brought to us by the late and great Stan Lee. This wasn't based on a pre-existing IP, this was the character's first introduction to the world. If this would've come out today, everyone's heads would've exploded, or someone would've decapitated Lee's corpse. I'm going to use images to separate the sections, but that's only because I wanted to give you an idea on how the show pushes sex appeal.

The show stars, and somehow I figured it would, Pamela Anderson, of VIP fame. We also have Biff Tannen, Mark Hamill, Joey Lauren Adams, Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, Vince MaMahon, Kid Rock- Okay, either Stan Lee was a national treasure, or maybe they had the money. The show was produced by The Firm, a talent management company that would later merge with Michael Ovitz's Artists Management Group. Among the producers are Kevin Kopelow and Heath Seifert, best known for writing and producing All That and Keenan and Kel, among other misc. Nickelodeon shows. They also wrote a majority of the episodes of this show.

Okay, so cleavage and midriff exposure aside, she's a stripper who happens to be a superhero. All plotlines involve crimes against the beautiful along with some knocks against crappy villain plans. The first episode is a two-parter, so I'm gonna jump to the third episode. I still have three other shows after this.

First few seconds in, I'm getting some Batman-parody vibes. The show's animation is decent, and its art-style screams Batman: The Animated Series. I'm forever grateful it doesn't scream Teen Titans. The episode in question centers on a criminal who mugs low-price stores. The joke coming into this is that why would he rob a store with affordable prices? And the villain's name is... Cheapo. Okay I'm not expecting high art, but I suppose this is a step above what you'd get in modern parody films.

Now, as you'd expect we'd get a lot of, ahem, stripteasing in this, and this is amplified in the opening sequence. All I know about her so far is that she's a superhero who's day job is stripping. Luckily, since the animation is good they can pull it off.

Post intro, we get into another aspect of this show, double entendres. We get an anus joke the moment we hear Pamela Anderson speak, no, we don't see her ass she's just plugging an animal rights group with an unfortunate acronym. Anyway, we get a little political jab, where Cheapo got out due to the government's lenience toward criminals, dropping a hard "liberal" too. I would say this would've been perfect during the H.W. Bush administration, but it would only do so if this were set in Massachusetts and if Michael Dukakis won. But whatever the case, it's refreshing to hear a political joke that doesn't involve... can you guess?

Believe it or not, but this is the first I ever heard of a villain like Cheapo. The guy basically has no money and works on a budget. Come to think of it, this is the first I heard of a superhero who works as a stripper. That, combined with its humor, as well as the fact that this is the first time I've ever seen an animated show set in a strip-club. I may be nicer to this regardless of what comes next, this so far seems like the most original thing I've ever seen. I can't post many images of this show, you can see why.

The sting behind Cheapo's ultimate plot is to not only steal a diamond, but an imitation of it. If you wanna play a character, you gotta follow through, so I commend them for that. I reserve the same comment for Stripperella's focus on strip-club terms and erotic dancing. If they didn't have that it'd just be reduced to pointless trivia. However the episode plays out, I'm just glad they followed through. Also Stan Lee makes a cameo in this.

I went into this, expecting the sex appeal to get in the way of action, but there is a decent balance. The strip scenes play out where they're appropriate, and they don't forgo the action too much. We still get a cohesive story out of this, a cohesive story with snarky dialog to mend it all together, along with occasional stabs at superhero show cliches. I actually liked the episode I watched, though something tells me I'd be in for a gamble if I see more.

So to sum up, it's like Batman if Batman was a stripper. It has action, it has tits, but it combines them well. Whatever the case, I prefer this to Mosaic, never heard of Mosaic? Of course you never heard of Mosaic. As for whether or not this could be considered sexist, we still have a kickass heroine who doesn't answer to a man and stay in the kitchen all day.

Before I move on, I'd like to bring up a strange factoid. RowdyCMoore did a review of this some time ago. I only bring this up because me and him are contributors to Manic Expression on some level. Then again, I wouldn't want anything to do with Rowdy, and he'd gladly return the favor.

Gary the Rat

Right off the bat, this show is interesting in terms of who was involved. The show was created by Mark and Robb Cullen, and this is honestly the first I heard of them. Apparently they were behind a garbage UPN series that I may need to look into someday.

Aside from that, the show stars Frasier and Sideshow Bob himself, Kelsey Grammer. Grammer also produced this show, so it has to be good with that level of faith, right? Wanna know who else produced it? Cheyenne Enterprises, which if you didn't know was Bruce Willis' production company. Well sorry to deceive you, but the company was also ran by Arnold Rifkin, who produced this show.

This show technically predates what would follow, it originally began as a series of shorts on the web in the year 2000, but came to Spike in 2003.

The series centers on Gary Andrews, a detestable defense attorney who turns into an anthropomorphic rat. This show would do for furries what Stripperella did for horny guys. Anyhow, like Stripperella, the premise isn't abandoned, he does try to find the reason for his transformation while maintaining his reputation, and adjusting to rat-like habbits.

I get a James Bond vibe from this, going by Gary's mannerisms and overall appearance, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing if they do something original with it. Well when was James Bond ever a rat who converses with his mom on the phone and dabbles in law? Then again, if you wanted to see Frasier do funny stuff while maintaining a straight face and disposition, they got this in spades.

The animation isn't as good as Stripperella. As mentioned before this began as a series of flash shorts, and it shows here. But when it comes to more comedic and commentary oriented shows, the animation should be the least of anyone's problems. I mean... it looks pleasant, the art style is at least original, it's not like 40% of everything's CGI and the rest is filled with characters who mug the screen without even trying, and I'm not making a Cans Without Labels reference for nothing, you'll find out soon enough.

Another thing about the show is that Gary's landlord wants him out and hires an exterminator to get rid of him. This could easily be used as an allegory for... I dunno, racism? Or property politics? But at least we get a clearer idea into why Gary changed. The guy's a schmuck, but isn't aware of it. That's my takeaway. Along with the fact that this takes place in New York. Also, he gets right to the point and accepts his predicament, he knows he's a walking circus attraction.

I guess this is also a commentary on how people are marginalized based on their issues, going for the Dilbert/Clerks/Stressed Eric approach where people are portrayed for their ineffectiveness and there're few sane voices in the crowd. Or perhaps it's just the ways Gary tries to find help, in that people are either apathetic to his plight or they give him an answer and it goes well over his head.

Looking into this, I expected the show to be a bit darker, and well, traditionally animated for some reason, so I was caught by surprise when I found out about what it actually was. At best, it's like Frasier, but with a slight legal slant and a touch of fantasy. Kelsey Grammer's sophistication, mended with some rat habits, makes for an interesting show. The character's well realized, and even for the animation, it has an interesting style.

This seems like the kind of show you need to follow on an episode-by-episode basis, so for me, if I ever have the time, maybe I'll check out the rest of the show to see what gives.

Ren and Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon

That's right, you knew this would be coming up. Unfortunately, for the sake of historical context I may need to defy my philosophy and give the obvious.

Right after John Kricfalusi was kicked off of Ren and Stimpy, and well after the show bit the dust, he got involved in a revival. Given that he's no longer bound by the standards of children's television, he essentially was able to do what he wanted, and the rest is history. It tainted the prospect of Ren and Stimpy being involved in future Nickelodeon properties, aside from a cameo in Attack of the Toybots and whatever else I'm missing, and this was John K.'s last television series, the stints on Adult Swim don't count as they were one-time shorts.

Believe it or not, this was my first exposure to Ren and Stimpy, at all. I used to watch Spike TV with my dad as a kid and I saw the characters in commercials. Now no, I never saw the show as a kid, but I imagine it would've had some kind of impact. No joke, I saw an episode of The Sopranos as a kid and it left an impact. It was Member's Only, and somehow I filtered out what happened in between most scenes in the final act.

Believe it or not, I actually saw two episodes prior to this review, the first and second ones, and since those were aired on Spike, it's a win win situation. But wait, the second? Does that mean I saw Ren Seeks Help? Yes.

Just to make this clear, I don't consider the show to be very good, and I'm gonna view it as someone who had no nostalgic background with Ren and Stimpy, which amounts to everyone who went after it. My biggest issue with it is how it's executed. Their attempts at gross-out and edgy humor comes off as desperate at best. Jokes drag on for longer than they need to, plus swearing.

The first episode revolved around Ren and Stimpy ingesting bodily fluids that enter a spittoon they move into, previously living in a homeless guy's mouth (which I remember catching in a commercial), then Stimpy kisses a rat's ass. It's like a sideshow attraction detailing some cornerstones in gross-out humor. For those that like it, it comes off as incredibly shallow. When you think about it, it happens for the sake of happening, and you can see it happening from a mile away. Oh, they're in a spitoon? Well I'm sure some joke will revolve around what goes into the spitoon. Also, Ren whips potatoes, and someone considers it a national offense... I'm glad I had no major background with the original show.

Then there's the big one, well big in that Mr. Enter covered it a long time ago and people latched onto it. As someone who never grew up with Ren and Stimpy, how did this episode go for me? Well I just saw a boy with an uncheck cased of sociopathic tendencies, and apparently frogs are like humans too. My biggest issue with this episode is edge for the sake of edge. It felt like they were throwing whatever they could at the wall to see if it would stick.

And to those who complain how the parents did nothing, that's just a part of Ren's descent into sociopathic hell. If his parents were ordinary, we wouldn't be here right now. His parents play a part into his psyche, where they were hardly there or are passing down a torch in some regards. People hate this in that they had a history with Ren and Stimpy, but as someone who, well, wasn't, it's a generic look at a man's depleting sanity, snapping when pushed too far.

There is a bright side to this, the animation, for what it's worth, is very good. The designs can be off-putting, but it amplifies the atmosphere the show's going for.

But there is one remaining question. Is this worse than Cans Without Labels? Absolutely not. For one, again, this had the most effort in terms of animation, and it was well before John K. got slaughtered by the grooming scandal, plus it didn't have a Kickstarter blunder behind it. It was just an edge and gross for the sake of having edge and gross show. I can't recommend this to anyone, aside from its use as an endurance challenge. Can you make it through all six episodes?

This Just In

And you'd think Spike dropped out cold turkey after Adult Party Cartoon, but they didn't, and I don't blame anyone for not know about this either. This Just In came out in 2004, essentially becoming Spike's very last original animated series. It's not exactly easy to find info on this show or at least I couldn't. The show lasted for four episodes before falling into obscurity.

I had to use the screencap above because it had the Spike bug on it, just to prove this aired on that network. Regretfully, only three episodes of this show are available anywhere, the first one is lost, and it's unlikely anyone recorded it or is aware of its rarity.

I also used the screencap because I needed to put one name on blast. Steve Marmel. You may recognize Marmel from The Fairly Odd Parents and Danny Phantom, but I know him nowadays as the average Twitter user. Stacks upon stacks of tweets cluing us in toward how political he is. Also he's on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@stevemarmel

Why am I bringing up his political views? Because this was a political show, and it was a conservative-leaning show. Now that's irony in the sincerest sense of the word. Even more so when you realize the protagonist Marmel voices has that lean.

Unlike the previous three entries, I'm gonna go over the animation first. The show, like Gary the Rat, was done in flash. Gary the Rat had a bit more detail, while this show is more simplistic. This was done primarily so they could get episodes out in time while the issues they discuss are still relevant. The animation is automatically better than Our Cartoon President's animation, as the latter made use of a lazier form of software.

The show centers on the exploits of reporter Brian Newport and his daily life... outside of the office. A prime point of interest is the bar, where Brian interacts with his henpecked friend... friend. And his black friend... black friend. Okay their names are stated in the episode, but I couldn't be bothered to remember them.

The conflict is always framed around something within a social-political basis. The one episode I saw of this was the second, where Brian's bar was taken over by a waitress, and he doesn't hold back. He showcases the toxicity of more radical feminism, at least toxic for the time. There's even a knock at the culture of the middle east.

But don't get me wrong, he knocks the right side too. The Cuban bartender is thrown into jail following a terrorism allegation, and Arnold Schwarzenegger appears in this too, portrayed as a total dolt. So I can conceivably see liberals and conservatives finding something to enjoy about this show.

Marmel was, in his own words, a raging moderate. But nowadays, with his left lean he essentially sold out. Now look, I don't want to knock on anyone's political views, but if you go about it a certain way, having to stress and go into things without thinking it through... I don't even want to know you.

Basically, we need this kind of show nowadays, a show that pokes fun at both sides. I am sick to hell of this one-sided bullshit, this is some George Wallace/Strom Thurmond level bullshit. Wanna know why conservatives call their movement the new punk rock? Well because they're rejected en-masse and only rebels would bother to promote their views, plus, guess who's holding the reigns?

See this is why I hate politics, you can't help but succumb to shelling your views out. And before you think it, I'm a center-left authoritarian, given my political compass results anyways.

Final Thoughts

However you feel about Spike's animated shows, it's not hard to see how interesting they are. We had a Stan Lee cartoon centered on a stripper who happens to be a superhero, we got to see Frasier act like a rat, we got some trauma in the least likely place along with a good idea on how bad John K. truly was, and we even got a glimpse into Steve Marmel's political history before he became retarded.

I'm certain someone covered all of these Spike shows in some kind of retrospective, but have they ever covered all four? That aired directly on the network?