Reflections on My Break

I had decided to take a break from social media, particularly sites that were either the most bothersome and see what it can do for my mental state. I certainly feel better, but I question if I may slip again. If anything, I may just take periodic breaks to keep myself balanced. I'm gonna be saying stuff that may come off as repetitive and petty, but I just want to get this out of my system, and hopefully give you some context to my behavior the past few days. I’m going to hopefully give you a better idea what got this going.

In my time gone, I have also reflected on my behavior before then. When I get into something, I tend to go all in, and a majority of the time I act like an asshole. To those reading this, if I had given you shit before, I'm sorry to most of you. What I mean is, to those I was a dick toward that I came at first, I'm sorry, but to those who responded in a relatively toxic fashion, it's complicated. The best way to respond to a douchebag is to do so in equal measure, so I got what I paid for, and I'm sure they just moved on right away.

What drove me to most of what I did, at least on Twitter, was negativity. I've rarely seen anything of the other extreme, so I just found myself responding to posts or those relevant to a current situation, and one big situation in particular was TheMysteriousMrEnter, but I won't go into what he did as I'm sure everyone is already sick to death of it. For what I did, it wasn't in defense of the review, it was the fact that it was difficult to express an opinion going against the majority without getting slammed for it. I saw it happen to one guy, and even after he removed the tweet, people still went at him, including bigger figures in the community.

Where I stand with it, I do agree the point was absurd, my issue is how quickly it was ran into the ground and that it can act like a free pass for just about anyone. I’m getting mixed signals by people bringing up his past fuck ups to try and justify that frenzy, that tells me they’re not doing it to be funny. That’s not my scene, at least I don’t want it to be. I can’t find humor in i, anymore at least.

It's silly, but when you realize people you look up to or those poised as being friendlier members of a community, or perhaps those who have gotten away with degeneracy just because they share the same opinions as the community at large, it gets kinda depressing, you can get away with just about anything as long as you meet proper criteria. There's also nothing anyone can really do about it, just because it doesn't seem fair that doesn't mean I suddenly have permission to go after people.

I didn't handle this well at all, and I found myself annoying people more often then not. I'm not gonna blame anyone for not telling me how they felt sooner, I'm just gonna accept where I went wrong and try to be better about it. It was there that I decided I wanted to take a break from social media, I came to the conclusion after having a little time to reflect on my behavior that day, and thus I would take the next two weeks off to decompress.

One thing that really proved important in helping me get over my frankly petty animation gripes was an underlying truth to Enter. He takes the good with the bad, then there's the bigger picture. Even in spite of all of the bullshit, he is still posting videos, survived multiple controversies and is just still going. Only thing stopping him is a loss of interest, or his channel, whatever may come first. I think he grew desensitized to a lot of stuff occurring to or around him and everyone just pulls the weight.

If these things don't bother him, why should I let it bother me? Rather than take the negative and go after strangers on the internet over a difference in opinion, when I could take the positive and laugh at how they're still trying to justify laughter through clenched teeth? I got over it, and I can only hope I can start the new year with a positive outlook.

Also, for those of you wondering where I stand with Turning Red, I still don't like the movie, but if you do, that's fine. I’m gonna steer clear of it the best I can, I’m not gonna harp on people who like it going forward, I already get the idea behind the drama so I have no interest in seeing videos about it, I already get the idea, and it's not gonna change my mind. I don't like the movie, better yet, I have no desire to watch it knowing that I won;t like it, and it was well before the situation occurred. I won't pick fights and I'll try to be better about my perspectives. For YouTube, if I see any videos about it, I'm just gonna assume they came out when Enter's video was new, and that Twitter is the only place pushing it. I won’t go further than that.

Now, this is no guarantee that I'm gonna be perfect the entire year, we all fuck up every now and again. If anything, I may take periodic breaks, maybe not from the internet entirely but just relegating myself to areas assuredly positive. Also need to remind myself not to go on Twitter or search certain people on YouTube, it may cause my brain cells to shrink. But on Twitter, I'm giving everyone weeks notice to add me on Discord or follow me anywhere else before I shut the account down, already putting it to a vote. YouTube can be annoying with what it shows in recommendations or searches, but the moment I stop using Twitter, it's as if a weight's lifted.

Thanks for reading, let’s see what 2023 has to offer.

Top 3 Episodes I Want to Avoid

Childhood trauma, or just unpleasant memories, everyone has them, you're not special. Simply put, throughout my childhood I've been exposed to stuff like Guns N' Roses, thrillers like Requiem for a Dream and The Sopranos, let's just say kid me was quite surprised with the end of Member's Only, but let's not get off track.

Everyone, no matter what, has that one show or episode they do not want to go back to for whatever reason, as in directly avoiding the episode however possible, like you've seen enough to get the gist of it, it is exactly how you remembered it, maybe even worse, and sometimes the episode is just so effective that if you seek to criticize it then you'd come off as petty, but you need some outlet to discuss it.

These are three episodes of three different shows that I do not want to revisit, knowing what's in them and what made me uncomfortable. Episodes would be ranked by the likelihood of me going back to them.

Honorable Mention

I won't include Helga's Makeover because I discussed that in my top 5 list of the worst Hey Arnold episodes, even though this is also one I want to avoid for the fact that it's exactly how I remember it, its off nature and all. However, people would often claim the first season is more of an experimental period and thus the writing was not entirely on the wall, the episode can be forgiven for that, I just don't find it enjoyable. I can watch the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy episode Who Killed Who? In spite of sharing a similar off premise, that one was just kinda stale and thus the message suffocates what the show was known for.

Speaking of Billy and Mandy, Get out of My Head is another honorable mention. Let me tell you, a majority of the Grim and Evil era was much darker than I remembered, okay not that dark, just in certain areas. I avoided this at first, but I kinda grew to accept it, realizing Billy had faced far worse or similar punishments Hell, one of them, Spider's Little Daddy, became one of my favorite episodes. But I think the reason this episode ranks lower is because Billy's stupidity wasn't firmly established, but nevertheless I'm not ready to write the episode off just yet.

Okay here we go.

#3: The Simpsons: War of the Simpsons

I needed a filler spot, and this was it. This placed number one on my worst episodes of The Simpsons list, and I did a full review of it not too long ago. This came out in the show's second season, when things were starting to gel, so no season 1 quirkiness. How bad is this episode for me, I couldn't even make it through a short clip on YouTube, my fight or flight kicked in and that was it.

Even compared to older and some later episodes, this felt off. It was the first episode to focus on the dysfunction between Homer and Marge's marriage, but previous episodes implied Marge at best settled, it just felt wrong, and that is the one term I can use to sum up the entire episode. This was long before we got the flashbacks to Homer and Marge's younger years, as if the writers wanted to make sure this didn't take any further prominence.

If you want my full thoughts, check out my review of the episode.

#2: Hey Arnold!: Mugged

Hey Arnold is a show I have a very mixed opinion on, I love the episodes I do, but there're a lot of faults I need to hold it up to, when Hey Arnold fucks up, it tends to fuck up hard, though my choice for the worst episode is not the usual one, and Mugged is not a bad episode, if it was it would've landed on my old list.

This episode didn't land on here because it's bad, far from it. This is an instance where an episode managed to get it right, maybe too right. The episode basically dealt with a power trip Arnold went on after learning how to fight from Gertie, right down to the Taxi Driver reference and him attacking an innocent bystander. The one thing that set me off was the confrontation after the latter, not that Arnold didn't deserve it, it was actually an effective way to knock him off his high horse. It just worked a bit too well, and the fact that this was released during the show's first season, which is when a show is at its most experimental, they pull out whatever stops they saw fit, hell even Caesar got in on it. For me, it perfectly represents a blow to one's ego, their idealized reality shattering when they see the true extent of what they have done, and it's far from pleasent.

It's funny how the five people that confront Arnold would be seen again in later episodes, old guy with a moustache and Martha (short haired lady) would be seen in Das Subway, the latter being seen more prevalently in later episodes. I guess the blue baseball cap kid got his design tweaked in Harold's Bar Mitzvah or I misremembered? Of course this was long before Caesar started answering the phone, and if you're a Hey Arnold fan you'd know what I'm talking about.

Long story short, the first season was weird, and this is an instance of something working far too well.

#1: Rugrats: Pickles vs. Pickles

I probably talked about this long ago, probably not I dunno, lol. Rugrats is no stranger to dark moments, especially with its pre-Dil seasons. Rugrats featured some pretty interesting nightmare sequences, it was certainly distinct, that along with its humor. Ironically, Angelica's Worst Nightmare isn't that scary to me, even as a kid all the way to now. But what would I consider my most disturbing episode? Well, you can see the title. Pickles Vs. Pickles has never placed on any list regarding creepiest nightmares, which I kinda get as people tend to gravitate more toward the more fantastical ones.

One edge Pickles Vs. Pickles has toward other episodes in my opinion is its realism. As a kid this would not bother anyone, but as an adult, it hits differently. The episode basically cemented Angelica as the brat she is, though to her credit she does have some fans, and represented Drew's inability to lay the hammer down, which ironically he did in earlier in the series, and he managed to be fine, hell, he was far more stern there.

Basically, this basically represents Drew's inability to truly control his daughter and how she practically has free reign under his roof. The fact that this was all a manipulation ploy that has been done multiple times before suggests Drew had this nightmare multiple times, or Angelica had better luck nixing the other foods previously, who knows?

More complicated answer, it's a psychological thriller that basically says a parent sucks at it because they bend to the will of their children and that it is something that can happen in real life, the lack of being able to curb bad behavior so to speak. More simple answer, the judge makes me uncomfortable, how easily he is able to be swayed to let Angelica rep herself and his insistence that she is entirely innocent. It's funny that he is made to resemble Thurgood Marshall, it's almost as if someone got paid some hefty hush money. Now sure, this could've been a sign something was wrong, but... eh screw it, I'm not freaking out over a monster, I'm freaking out over something that can possibly happen, possibly. If it were to happen the judge would have to be a huge pedophile, which is arguably more creepy. If the Rugrats reboot ever remade episodes from the original, how much do you wanna bet that the judge would be modeled after Clarence Thomas?

Also this is one of the few Rugrats episodes to make use of an alternative end credits theme, they obviously went for a more sinister approach here. By that point, after my revisitation of it, I had my fill and I never wanted to see it again.

And that's about it.

Ed, Edd n' Eddy's Useless Season

 Okay, this isn't the first time I ever talked about the fifth season, but chances are it was a very rough take that I will only now put right. I used to be a big fan of Ed, Edd n' Eddy, well I still am, though I don't tune into old episodes. The show is over, the fandom is surprisingly well behaved, and I believe the show is superior to the shit people latch onto these days, for one thing it's not corporate, and no I'm not gonna explain what I mean by that.

But it's not all perfect, obviously. Nobody is reluctant to bring up any of the show's shortcomings, but there was one hangup I have with the show that persisted for so long. It seems like a petty thing to complain about, but the last season of Ed, Edd n' Eddy was so... not good, it actually convinced me that I just wasn't a fan of the show, when that is not the case.

To be fair, I'm not saying one season is better than the other, bad episodes are evenly spread out between seasons, and this wasn't necessarily out of Danny Antonucci's control, he went along with what seemed to be right, I mean aside from going digital, go drawn or go home. I really don't like the fifth season, and I feel it not happening would be inconsequential, and it seems I may not be alone with that, as most EEnE diehards actually liked my Tumblr post with the same opinion, and a common consensus is that it has some good episodes, some bad ones, or they're just happy to get more out of their favorite show.

I'm gonna go over why I don't like the fifth season of Ed, Edd n' Eddy, and why I believe it is expendable.

My Experience

I watched Cartoon Network during the early-2000s, so I was able to catch episodes of the fifth season when they were out. I have seen plenty of the older seasons' episides, I played Candy Machine Deluxe and Spin Stadium whenever I could, and I was basically ready for the long ride with the show.

When I saw the episodes new, I'll admit, I did like some of them, even those that would go on to be criticized later on, but even as a kid, something about most of the episodes felt... off, and this had stuck with me ever since then, to the point I found myself avoiding reruns of episodes I didn't like.

So no, I'm not doing this just for some contrarian cred, even as a kid I didn't like the fifth season that much, and that hasn't changed frankly.

Last Season Curse

People have often used the term seasonal rot to note shows that gradually began to crumble in its later years, and yes, I know this point is used ad nauseum, but for ever common complaint lies a kernel of truth. For every final season, it often reflects a lessened budget, like with ChalkZone or Real Ghostbusters for instance, or a creative director change, like the Chris Savino seasons of Dexter's Laboratory and PowerPuff Girls, not counting the Games era of Ren and Stimpy because let's be real, they didn't need John Kricfalusi, well, after he made the charaters. It's not always gonna be bad, but if you've been watching the show for a while, you're bound to pick up on a few differences. Seasonal rot does not always mean a show's last season sucks, it means this is a sign that either the creatives were worn to the bone with it, or the networks wanted it off as soon as possible, with a creative change only occurring if the original one steps down.

Danny was with the show all the way to the end, and that was for the better, he was always around to direct the episodes, but the one time he didn't during this season, we got what is often considered to be the worst episode of the entire series, or at least one that lands somewhere in the top five.

Some of the spirit of the previous seasons has been kept intact, but it is mixed in with some very noticeable tweaks that take away from that experience, often trumping what made the show so popular in the first place, and falling into the same trap that most shows do with new writers going off of notecards or struggling with ideas or stripping character personalities away.

The Little Differences

Now what do I mean by spirit? I mean the slapstick comedy in an otherwise normal setting. Danny, or someone, has said they avoid the prospect of characters growing up to preserve the timelessness of the series, which makes sense. The summer setting may also play into the timelessness by ridding any prospect of time moving forward, this shit could happen in the span of a few days or so and none would know the difference.

So obviously I object to the school setting.

I'm not gonna go all Mario fan on this, but I do have my complaints. That timeless setting, by implying that summer is over and having the kids go to school, it sorta takes away from the timelessness the writers were going for. If the show got more seasons, maybe someone would've celebrated their birthday, maybe we would've seen the parents, then you realize The Eds are Coming and Mission Ed Possible, Rock a Bye Ed doesn't really count as it was some depiction of Jonny 2x4 for the sake of the plot.

It's such simple things that were unfortunately cast aside, and so close to the finish-line too. Now look, I know this may sound like I'm making a big deal, fine, but I dunno, what do these changes add to the show at large? Granted, it's not just throwing in new characters on a whim, I like how creative they got to avoid showing any new characters, but if anything this marks a contrast between this and earlier seasons because you rarely saw any other instances in the older episodes. Keep this in mind.

The football episode shows the best and worst of making use of a limited cast for so long. While the Lemonbrook football team are depicted by shoulders, we see shots of a crowd barely shown in, with the Kankers singled out. It just looks awkward, but like, did we need a football episode in Ed, Edd n' Eddy? That episode sucked balls, I'm sorry.

Our Friends in Name Only

And of course I need to get into how the characters feel just as off. To its credit, the characters have more consistency than other characters from shows that slipped into its terminal days, either that or they were more subtle about it. About the only major change I noticed was Ed, who turned out to be far more annoying than he was in the past, either because he tends to speak louder or may have lost more braincells than we were led to believe.

The big problem with the characters, at least for me, is the writing. The stories they are put into either drive them to over the top extremes rarely or never seen in previous seasons, and of course those on the lower end suffer the worst. Nobody likes Sarah, and of course she pulls a devastating fast one in "The Ed is Falling" or whatever the sky is falling episode name was. It's a Sarah plot without anything more to make it stand out, basically the 55% people don't take away from episodes like that.

And I gotta ask, why are Sarah and Jimmy in the same grade as everyone else? Otherwise why have them go to school if you're gonna treat it like it's still summer? It's almost as if this makes no sense even by an over the top cartoon's standard.

All I can say about Kevin is that he is a contributing factor to Smile for the Ed being seen as one of the worst episodes in the show, and yeah, seeing it brand new as a kid, all I can say is you had one job. On the other hand, maybe this was Danny's way of messing with the network, showing them what would happen if you separate him from the show. If that's true, that is clever, but it may've worked far too well.

But the one character I feel that suffered the worst because of the writing, was Edd. Much like how the season convinced me I didn't like the show, this season convinced me I didn't like Edd. The biggest draw here is when Edd smugly leaves Eddy to suffer for what he did or was associated with, even being involved with most of Eddy's misfortunes, or at least the no neck chump business. If you want to quit, just do so Edd, you're supposed to be the smart one right?

You may think 'oh, you see though, it's his way of showing he has backbone, just like in Momma's Little Ed.' And I can understand where you're coming from, but Eddy deserved it at the end, more importantly because he targeted Edd directly.

Really, the best way to compare Edd in most season five episodes is Sorry, Wrong Ed, the similarities are astounding, namely Edd's I don't give a shit about a guy I'm possibly friends with. If this was to set up some big argument, like in Big Picture Show, it wouldn't work because what set him off there was Ed and Eddy screwing with him during the journey to Bro. If it was as you thought it was, the series proper would've ended with Edd joining the Cul De Sac kids, arguably darker than the fourth season finale, because at least there the trio was still in effect.

It feels like sometimes the writers had it out for Eddy. We had some more brutal takedowns by the Kankers, even his own friends would turn against him, something was definitely not right with this, but what do I know?

The Core Element

I'd like to touch upon the slapstick real quick, I'm sure someone is gonna bring that up as a consistent element to the show. Yes, the sight gags and slapstick are here, but compared to those in the older seasons, even these feel off. Sure, they do happen, but... best way I can put it is that the older seasons had some slight restraint, pulling it off when you'd least expect it or having a really good gag pulled. Somehow, the fifth season feels even more cartoony, with faces and gags done that I would have never expected to see in older episodes.

It doesn't feel like they were included because they suited the series they were part of. In this season, it felt like they were included for the sake of being included, but it's as if the writers forgot their own work, or the network demanded more of it that we go overboard most of the time.

Check out an old episode, then one of the fifth season episodes, and tell me if you see something similar.

Its own

Interestingly, it was here that the show transitioned to digital animation, so me going on about the little differences hones in on how alien this season feels compared to others. With the gag execution, the treatment of most characters and the common setting, you can remove this season from the show and, really, what harm would it do? Anything new that occurred had done so in this season anyhow.

But you may be thinking, well without the fifth season, we wouldn't get Big Picture Show. Okay, maybe you have a point, but by then Ed, Edd n' Eddy was still very popular so I'm sure we would've gotten the movie regardless of the fifth season occurring or not. Especially so, since the movie occurred in the Summer, when the older seasons did. The use of digital animation in it helps make the spectacle more believable and feel like a grand finale. For one thing it looks better than The Loud House Movie, possibly even the Casagrandes Movie.

The fifth season has similar animation to Big Picture Show, and that dulls the spectacle aspect just a tad. The fact the fifth season throws in a new setting placement and hints of other characters ruins the mystique the movie would offer, in terms of the Eds exploring the world outside of the Cul De Sac, seeing small hints of new people, especially Bro at the end. Now, of course the kids make peace at the end, so that is a good thing at least, but we could've come to that without the fifth season.

If anyone was gonna bring up releasing the movie earlier because there would be no new content between when the movie came out and the fifth season did, how about a compromise? They could waste less time on a, quite frankly divisive season and just produce the holiday specials and participate in CN Invaded, new content in small increments, building up to a grand finale. I won't say some traces of the fifth season's writing didn't get into this movie, but at most it feels like the spirit of the older seasons was kept. Hell, even the over the top gags make more sense as this was a TV film with higher ambition than the previous seasons.

And I'm sure someone is gonna say if we didn't have season five things would end on a very dour note thanks to Take This Ed and Shove It's ending. But let's be real, you can wonder about that. It's not tragic, just a sarcastic yearn for lost youth, by this point everyone was on good terms and just got old. People say the last episode of the fifth season was a good finale, but honestly it felt kinda forced, and it was as if Danny gave an exasperated sigh of relief that he was finished with it. It was like a wet fart basically, especially since, lol, that wasn't even the last episode, and I don't mean Big Picture Show, I mean the lost episode that came from the proposed sixth season, of course they were planning more, but something happened and we never got it. Maybe somewhere, it was because the fifth season was such a groaner that people feared what other seasons would entail.

Final Thoughts

I understand Ed, Edd n' Eddy is a heavily respected show, and I can certainly agree with it. But even as a kid, I didn't like the fifth season's episodes very much. It felt like the show in name only, and it made me feel like I wasn't a fan of the show anymore. It has in quality what it has in expendability, and had this never come out, beyond the holiday specials, I think it would've made Big Picture Show a hell of a lot more satisfying.

Campfire Stories Review

 What makes It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia so good is the chemistry between the actors. This is owed to them having worked on different projects together beforehand. For instance, Rob McElhenney and the lawyer both appeared in a YooHoo commercial, that also featuring the original actress for Dee Reynolds in the pilot, Rob and Charlie Day would appear at separate times in Law and Order, and they would gradually come together in ER, then in 2003, they would get to work on the pilot, as it gradually became what it is now.

However, Rob and Charlie had worked together on something relatively earlier, and this film is credited to how they originally met. So, if there wasn't a Campfire Stories, would there ever have been an It's Always Sunny in Philadelpha?

Background

Campfire Stories is an anthology film released direct-to-video in 2001. It was based on an independent comic book series put out by Don Oriolo, and if that name is familiar, I literally talked about him in my last review, the guy behind Coconut Fred. The film was put out by Velocity Home Entertainment, who had also put out an early Uwe Boll movie by the name of Blackwoods. The film was divided to three directors, and while this wasn't their only rodeo, there isn't anything notable I can list off of them here.

Aside from Charlie and Rob, apparently Perez Hilton was in this, though this was within his first year of acting. The film was shot in New Jersey and apparently was the start of two actors' careers, that's about it. For a while this movie was tricky to find... for free, but in recent months, I got lucky and someone posted it on YouTube, and after I had finished grad school I figured I'd unwind and check out this movie, as well as another called Out of Bounds, but for another time.

What can you expect? Well sit around the fire and let's find out.

The Movie

One thing that bugged me about the start is that we're treated to a two minute intro involving a talking skull done in ultra cheap CGI, trying to overhype the rest of the movie, but then we finally get to the wraparound sections. Charlie and another guy with a speech impediment I guess, he's weird, get a flat and stranded with a girl. As they attempt to find help, they happen upon a desolate campsite and encounter Ranger Bill.

This would be a time to hedge some bets on what the big ol' conclusion is. Is Ranger Bill a psycho killer? Did the three somehow die on the way? Ddi they prevent a realtor from meeting a dealine? But let's not jump to assumed conclusions, this is a cheap rental, I'm giving it a shot.

A tow truck is called and Bill decides to tell the three stories while they wait, I mean this is Campfire Stories so at least we didn't lose that out of the gate. Because we didn't have any summaries of the stories available elsewhere, I didn't know what to expect out of what the tales would consist of, so I had low expectations.

The first story details an escaped mental patient who is tortured at his ward. I'd question if this is true, but have you've even been to Turn-About Ranch or Provo Canyon Boarding School? The director is onto something it seems. The guy would take on a job as a school janitor years later, and some jocks, led by someone who would be better suited as a water or towel boy, harass the janitor to justify the scary element of the story to come soon. After the janitor steals the kid's backpack, he decides the best course of action is to murder him.

He and a few others head out to find him, and yeah they're gonna get picked off one by one. Not even a castration can be considered subversive here, lest the janitor hates when people piss on trees. So of course, the kid gets left alone and after trying to make peace, he backs down and now he's going to go through similar torture, and his girlfriend is dead apparently.

Pretty standard revenge tale, I feel some of it is a bit forced such as the conflict, but I guess the other kills make sense as they joined the dogpile. I'll give Bill the benefit of the doubt of this being a warm-up, though I gotta say it would've been more interesting to have the three share their own stories, stuff that would give viewers a firmer idea on their mentalities or whatever, but that's just me.

The next story details some teens, and it's quite obvious they're crooks I mean look at their outfits, we can't be subtle here. The teens see a Native American enter a restaurant, and they feel like killing somebody today, must've objected to him not wanting the change for a fifty. It is here that the bad CG effects return with a vengeance, not for a lack of quality but because there's so much happening without rhyme or reason. It seems like he summons a snake via a ceremony, but he gets strangled and it turns out the teens did that. Was this meant to be a warning? If so why didn't he do something sooner? This would've made more sense as a prediction rather than a representation of what happened.

And look, it's teens in a horror scenario, you know what that means? Getting high. They do some puffs on a staff the guy had and begin to see more of the so-so CG in this, and they trip harder than anyone I've ever seen, so do they die? Actually no, I had expected them to go that route, but there is one tell that I only then realized was there. It began at a diner with multiple old people, one was apparently dead or non-existent because he was completely still. If you haven't guessed, the teens are made old, and their youth goes into the Native American. I dunno, is this a more acceptable fate? I mean they didn't die at the end, but this reminds me of that one episode of Tales from the Darkside that I don't seem to like.

This consists of three stories, and we're already on the third, and this one is where Rob comes in. In this, two couples stay at a house haunted by the ghost of a relative to one of the girls. This one is fairly slow and kinda hard to really keep up with. The girlfriends reveal to have been caught on tape by the guys in their pranks and they want to get payback... eventually. The girls get them to play hide and seek and blindfold the boys, but then a killer enters the fray. Is it the guys? Is it one of the girls? Is it that deputy that randomly showed up?

Well... not necessarily? Everyone gets killed except for the girls, but then the last girl gets killed and... apparently... the one girl was possessed and killed everyone. I liked the transition at the end, but, I dunno. At least the other ones benefited from being more straightforward. This needed a little extra elbow grease, so to speak

And at the end, with the expectancy of Bill turning out to be a psycho killer still out their, the tow truck arrives, and they all leave. Forgot to mention that at the start Charlie and the other guy were on the way to a party, and the one place that has a working phone is where they were trying to go in the first place. But then oh lawd, Bill is the bartender, and everyone in the stories turns out to be real, and we assume Charlie and the other guy get murdered. I didn't know what to expect, but the girl turning out to be evil was admittedly a twist I didn't see coming. The writers actually made this twist seem surprising, at least in my opinion.

The credits role and we get to see pages from Don's comic, and that's about it.

Final Thoughts

Okay, so for a shorter amount of tales, a lack of predictability or heavy-handed socio-political allegories and not being treated like an idiot the entire time, this is automatically better than American Nightmares.

This is a cheap movie through and through, respectable for its ambition but otherwise having little to show for it. I can respect it for being a little passion project, and of course I've seen much worse. But at the end, perhaps had it not been for this movie, Rob wouldn't have met Charlie and we might not've got It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Now if you'll excuse me, I saw this guy pay for a coffee and not ask for change for a fifty, and now I feel like committing murder before meeting a girl who was possessed by a psycho grandmother who was murdered in her very house 100 years ago tonight.

LTA: Coconut Fred

 I wouldn't say its been a while since I did a review, but there is a considerable gap between this and my last. A lot is happening in my life, I'm set to finish my last term in grad school this Sunday, I'm waiting for an update on a part time job and I'm gonna celebrate by binging some movies on Tubi and YouTube, and since I'm facing some writers block on my last assignment, I figured I'd vent about something.

Remember Coconut Fred: Fruit Salad Island? Me neither. It was that year I moved into a new house, at that point I was just watching Cartoon Network and never really had a reason to watch KidsWB. First I ever heard of it was by chance when I was googling KidsWB's program list, long before this show became a whipping boy of some degree.

I'll get into a contributing factor to me making this review later, but for now, back then I saw at least two episodes in full, Bad Apple, and something about a tropical resort. I had some experience with the show, and I still feel like there's little to show for it. But let's get right into it.

What is?

The mid-2000s saw a small rise in shows with overly optimistic main characters in summery or tropical settings, ballpark to around 2004 when the SpongeBob movie was released, or perhaps when the show was at its peak, before it killed everyone's brains. It's not definite, but imagine if other creators assumed the show was gonna end after the movie, and they wanted to create the next big thing to fill the hole set to be left, a lot of faces would go red over the hindsight.

The show is credited to two creators, Don Oriolo and Sammy Oriti, with development credited to Ray DeLaurentis. Oriti has a very thin filmography, to say the least. He is tied to two obscure films, and this is the only cartoon he ever worked on. Oriolo has a more interesting past, having worked on Campfire Stories, a cheap horror anthology which is notable for being where Charlie Day met Rob McElhenney, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

However, Oriolo does have some experience with animation, primairly working on The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat and other stuff relating to the property. Oriti and Oriolo do have a big connection, where Oriti was given a special thanks on Felix the Cat Saves Christmas. Oriolo was also behind I Am a Gummy Bear, the music video and the movie. So, quite an oddball pair and one has dirtier hands than the other.

They conjured up a concept and pitched it to someone in the business, in this case, Ray DeLaurentis, and what has he done? Well aside from some work on the 80s revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Providence, he created and wrote the Bubsy pilot, was a common writer on the later seasons of Fairly Odd Parents, wrote at least one episode for Bunsen is a Beast, also wrote for Shaggy and Scooby Doo Get a Clue, whatever was wrong with it, oh yeah, and he wrote Bah Humduck!, the worst Christmas Carol adaptation of all time.

On the upside he has also worked on Xaolin Showdown and Ozzy and Drix, among other stuff that may be considered decent. It seems beforehand he had worked at Warner Bros. Animation hence how this landed in KidsWB's crosshairs.

What makes this show interesting is that it features both American and Canadian voice actors. Our lead is played by Rob Paulsen, keep that in mind, and I believe one character was played by Danny Cooksey. For the rest, we have Michael Donovan, who has gone between American and Canadian productions, Brian Drummond, the first voice of Knuckles the Echidna, Tracey Moore, one point Princess Peach as well as The Geek from Sam and Max: Freelance Police, Kelly Sheridan, who played Diana in Martin Mystery, Britt McKillip, who played Hannah in the Scary Godmother movies, and lastly Eric Bauza, who just two years prior played Stimpy in Ren and Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon, and would later lent his voice to Slab in Cans Without Labels, the final nail in the coffin for John Kricaflusi. He's also in far too much stuff to mention. He was once based in Canada, only appearing on Adult Party Cartoon because one of the studios behind the animation was based in that country, and the rest is somehow history.

What About?

This is a comedy involving an overly optimistic and naive coconut attempting to spice up life on a tropical island full of living fruits, and of course one guy will have none of it. It seems every episode operates in a bubble, nothing occurring being of any consequence in another.

The first episode I saw, I forgot the title of, and... it wasn't anything to write home about. It helped introduce me to most key characters, for however basic they are. Not even something made for kids in mind, but are you telling me three dimensions is too mature for children? I'm just saying.

However, it was when I saw another episode that things went south, and I became better acquainted to Fred's brand of annoyance, either that or I saw how weak the writing of the show could be. Latter first, they incorporated a running gag where a bully calls Fred a mean name, but it turns out there is an existing character with that name and Fred assumes that's who he's referring to. The former, it's how Fred goes about carrying out the jokes, naivety can only get you so far, and the only way its constant use can work is if the character happens to be aware of it and is just using it to get a rise out of people. I'm just saying, regardless of it being a TV show sometimes you go through something so many times you attempt to rationalize it so you can justify the time you wasted.

But cards on the table, that was the last episode I saw in full, I gave up on a third one and years later, someone did a review of the show.

That's really all I can say about the show, it's annoying and there's no nuance to it, the plots are too weak to hold over flat personalities, likely dumbed down for a lack of true thought, owed to pedigrees of mediocre productions, or in two instances, having little connection to the medium at all. However, that isn't to say a cartoon is automatically going to suck if someone involved has no experience, but that really only applies to writers.

For instance, there's an episode of CatDog, Sneezie Dog, whose writer only had credits to live-action productions, and that episode was decent. There's a Hey Arnold! episode, Magic Show, written by a novelist who had no other experience with cartoons. It can be done, but it depends on what you're bringing to the table.

This is basically the opposite of Mike, Lu and Og, as in compared to another show set on an island that is considered mediocre at best, this is worse than that. Mike, Lu and Og at the very least had more experienced animators and artists, or maybe I'm trying to say something nice about it before the influx of negative reviews bury it, and because I did a review of it that's now lost to time.

But to give a proper summary, this show is like a beehive on a tree well out of walking range. It isn't doing anything, and interacting with it is always gonna be consequential.

But that's not why we're here

There's a bigger reason why I decided to make this, and why it's classified as a "Let's Talk About" rather than a review. There has been an ongoing stigma against this show, which to this day I still don't understand. This is apparently a rip-off of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Now, look, I'm probably the last person who would ever consider something a rip-off. Hell, I unironically watch Irate Gamer and consider AVGN to be overrated and overprotected, why else do people suddenly not have the time to watch a documentary detailing a decline in quality? My point is, I've stopped taking the rip-off label seriously long ago, so when something is accused of being one, I'm always going to see it with some level of skepticism.

Which is good, because considering this show a rip-off is a stretch so big that it'd be easier to call MrEnter a rip-off of Spax3. It's enough to vindicate the sheer volume of stupid that hit Johnny Test, and many asses are still stinging from that era, at least people are becoming kinder to earlier seasons of it though.

Now, I didn't take it seriously at first, I just thought this was general idiocy on the Reception Wiki's part, which is where I first heard of it, but no, people are dead set on framing it as a rip-off.

But let's look into the accusations, or the bigger ones. They went out of their way to claim characters are rip-offs of others.

Coconut Fred is considered a rip-off of SpongeBob, the character I mean. Coconut Fred is not a frycook, let alone employed in a consistent job. He does not have any hobbies that consist of catching things with nets. He does not have a pet that is the equivalent of a cat. He does not have proper buck teeth. He does not have blue irises. He is not square nor is he a sponge. Also, you're basically implying SpongeBob is insufferably annoying if you think Fred is a copy of him.

Slip and Slide are considered rip-offs of Patrick on the grounds of both being idiots. They're two characters, they have a clear Southern drawl, and few strokes of genius. Otherwise by their logic, every dumb character is a rip-off of Patrick.

Mr. Greenrind, you would think would be considered a rip-off of Squidward, but no, people call him a Mr. Krabs rip-off. I've seen only one episode with Mr. Greenrind, he's not greedy, he doesn't own a restaurant, and basically you've never seen a grumpy man in your life.

This last one is absolutely hilarious, Bingo Cherry, a sentient cherry who can speak proper English and works as an assistant to the lead grump... is apparently a rip-off of a house pet. When I first heard the claim of this being a rip-off, seeing the reasons, I thought it was just an elaborate joke poking fun at the Johnny Test hate crowd, but no, this is considered serious enough.

Next, the setting, Coconut Fred takes place on an island, above water. SpongeBob takes place in a city, under water. Coconut Fred and other characters are fruits, SpongeBob characters are fish or some variation of existing sea creatures.

I'll give the Johnny Test crowd some credit, it's quite a coincidence that the smartest characters in that show happen to be red-heads with glasses, maybe that's why Slip and Slide were considered rip-offs based on that technicality?

But fine, I'll play your game, I'll go one ahead and say this isn't a rip-off of SpongeBob, this is more like a rip-off of Camp Lazlo, but let me explain.

Lazlo and Fred are insufferably annoying naive optimists, Chip and Skip and Slip and Slide are dumb as dirt twins, Mr. Greenrind and Lumpus are grumpy leaders of their base of operations and are at odds with the insufferably annoying naive optimists, and both have impish sidekicks who often side with the insufferably annoying naive optimists.

It's honestly hilarious how people are quick to suddenly make comparisons where they don't usually fit, but are just as quick to ignore more blatant similarities for other characters. For instance, Bessie Higgenbottom and Penny Leftowitz give off some clear SpongeBob and Patrick vibes, and I saw at least one person immediately deny it. Either people are blind or they want to protect those quirky girls Twitter users like to wax over.

Sorry about that tangent, I wanted to get that off my chest for a long while.

Now, you may be thinking that I'm ignoring an elephant in the room, that MrEnter probably got these claims going. But let me say this, he didn't originate many of the attitudes animation fans had at the time, he just helped them to spread. People have already hated Breadwinners and the new SpongeBob episodes long before Enter gave their thoughts, now yes, I hold him up for not helping quell those claims sooner, but there is one person who is consistently credited to getting the rip-off claims going, and what Enter probably referred to in his review.

Not a reviewer, not someone on the internet, but an industry professional.

Rob Paulsen.

At one point, Rob Paulsen claimed that the show was a rip-off of SpongeBob SquarePants, for some reason. Best case, he is unaware of how little braincells the animation community has, I mean why else does AniMat have a following? But look, if you think about either show, it is easy to see where either contrasts.

You compare this show to one where there're more differences than similarities if you think hard enough (which is apparently a sin in the animation community these days), and again, more obvious examples fly right over your head.

It has gotten to a point where people claim this is a rip-off based on Rob Paulsen's word alone. And with that, I'd just like to place myself on the hill I'm ready to die on. Rob Paulsen's an idiot. Either he didn't look deeper into where the claims come from, or he just wants to look cool for animation fans. Either he's stupid, or does not have any grasp on grander implications. He was the same guy who agreed to have any part in Doug Walker's career... I can't think of anything else.

Or maybe SpongeBob fans aren't very bright. I mean, they can't even detect sarcasm, and they have idiots like MoBros and LambHoot assing it up without remorse. A lot of shit has happened with the SpongeBob fandom over the past few years, and Rob Paulsen gave them more ammunition with the most baseless idea yet.

I'm harping on this because it's dangerous to hold something against the show based on one man's word alone. It's one guy's word, we don't know his philosophy or reason for saying these things, and if it's a joke it would be spread so much that people would forget the meaning it originally had. I mean, for instance, Brian Posehn only dunked on Nickelback because they were overplayed on the radio, and you can fill in the blanks.

Final Thoughts

On any other day, this would just be an incredibly obnoxious show that is rightly ragged on, for better or worse. However, when people decide to base their views of it on what another said, it ruins the prospect, because half the time the grander context is sorely missed. I don't care what Rob Paulsen says, his word is meaningless because it was done for validation rather than seeing what he has done.

This is just a case of favoritism and ignorance. If this was considered a Camp Lazlo rip-off then that would be fine as that and this have too many similarities to ignore. To whoever got those crazy allegations going, I hope their career is as troubled as Cam Clarke's.

Venting About the Chris Pratt Biz

 Remember the days when Sonic fans whined about Jason Griffith? It's a few years late, but I never thought we'd get a pseudo sequel, one that is even more petty than that was.

I'm doing this because I'm awaiting feedback on a rough draft, and I got time.

So, a new Mario movie was announced and a trailer dropped not too long ago. There's a little stink going on with it, and it got me thinking, oh this is by Illumination are people gonna hate on it for that alone? Is this gonna be like a meme where the Sonic movie trumps it? I wish it were either two, it would make more sense.

But no, the big takeaway people got from an otherwise interesting trailer... is one particular voice actor.

Chris Pratt was cast as Mario, understandable, as any film needs big name actors in order to get audiences in on name appeal. But of course, people lost their shit, guess we can't go one year with one movie getting ran through the dirt over something so minor.

People got butthurt because Charles Martinet wasn't cast as Mario in this, and they have absolutely no sense of self-awareness about it. They think it's a big huge crime that Mario, shock and horror, has a different voice. Just wait till they watch the old Mario cartoons, they'll have a heart attack I'm sure.

I don't care what Chris Pratt's take on Mario is like, he's just doing what he is directed to do and clearly trying his best. How was he supposed to know how nuts many Mario fans are? I'm sorry, but a lot of them are taking this way too far and I needed to go that route.

Where does this stack up to the Sonic voice actor drama from years ago? Well let's look at it like this, when people complained about the voice actors, I can kinda see where they're coming from. The cast change happened only due to the death of Deem Bristow, and SEGA thinking it would be cheaper to have the cast from 4Kids dub of Sonic X handle future titles. 4Kids had already begun to build up a negative reputation, and I can imagine some saw it as an extension of that. But since then the tides have turned and many of the 4Kids cast members are seen as the superior actors to the characters they voiced.

What's the excuse for Chris Pratt drama? Chris Pratt is voicing Mario in the upcoming movie, that's it. He hasn't replaced Charles Martinet in the games, you can choose whether or not you watch the movie, it has absolutely no impact on the games and can be easily ignored.

I'm sorry, but it's a petty complaint no matter how you slice it, even if the voice turns out to be bad, whining about voice acting? This isn't 2007, and it reminds me of PowerPuff Girls, who try to start one crisis after another.

Sure it was great the Sonic movie staff managed to fix the animation, but I feel that as a caveat, it gives people the idea they can bully movie producers into making them change things they don't like. If you had to resort to changing things you don't like with AI or whining about a voice actor, there's only one thing I can say.

Cope.

Scenes I Misremembered

A long time ago, I talked about movie scenes that occurred differently than I remembered, but a lot of you probably never heard of that. Nuff said, I'm gonna go over stuff from cartoons that I remembered differently, whether I didn't focus on the finer details or something else. These are gonna go by quick, some at least.

Spoiler warning

Mucha Lucha: Chinche

Remember this show? Mucha Lucha is considered to be the first television cartoon show animated in flash, by people who never heard of John Callahan's Quads. Anyway, I used to watch this show a lot when I was younger on Cartoon Network, and it's pretty good. This episode was released in the show's first season. I remember watching it for the first time, I had to leave the room for a few seconds, and from then all I got from this episode was that The Flea was a jerk to his cousin, and he hated him for plot's sake.

But when I returned to this episode years later, it was the exact opposite. I left the room around the time The Flea went through a prank where an elephant was released from a gift Chinche gave him. At first I thought it was just something that was in The Flea's imagination, but no, it was real. In fact, I completely spaced on Chinche intentionally icing out The Flea and attempting to steal his friends.

And then the climax. I did see the flashback to Chinche's birthday where The Flea gave him diapers. Hear me out, Chinche had worn diapers back then, but that was a secret, and because The Flea made it known to people accidentally, Chinche held it against him ever since, and of course they make peace. Looking back at this episode, it really made the show much better than I remembered it, and gave me some grander respect for what would be a more comedic character, The Flea cares deeply for his friends and family, he was the heart and the humor of the group, Buena Girl was the brains and the conscious and Ricochet was the brawn and the mouth.

CatDog: Dem Bones

This one's gonna be brief. This episode centers on Dog stealing the bones from a T-Rex exhibit while sleepwalking, and CatDog needs to return it lest they want to face museum jail time. During the climax where CatDog confront the museum guard while puppeting the fossil. I remembered it differently, in that I thought Cat was more into scaring the guard as payback for hassling them, but really, he was just trying to avoid getting caught and wanted to do a brief scare.

Hey Arnold!: Helga and the Nanny

In a review I did of this episode, I alluded to a false memory I had with this episode. I remember Helga arguing with a haggard old woman, and I assumed it was this episode, but obviously that wasn't the case. There was crossed wires between this and Crabby Author, best I can say.

King of the Hill: Hanky Panky

Now, I think a lot of people know how this went, but just to get you on track, Buck Strickland faces scrutiny from his wife, things are thrown out of wack and Buck's piece of ass Debbie wants to seduce Hank, and she dies at the end. What could this be leading to? Well, I thought Luanne died at the end. Both she and Debbie were blondes... and this seems embarrassing.

The only other Debbie I knew was the one from Wild Thornberries, so younger me assumed all cartoon blondes were named Debbie, so I was like, shit, they killed off "Debbie" (Luanne), if this actually happened, that would've made King of the Hill interesting, in that they jumped the shark higher than The Simpsons did.

But obviously, this didn't happen, hence my shock that Luanne was alive and well. If she could survive a propane explosion, she could survive anything, but to be fair... rest in peace Brittney Murphy.

Invader Zim: First Episode

I never saw much of Invader Zim growing up, so naturally I wasn't able to really soak in the show's humor, wherever it applied. This is one of two episodes I will go over. For the first episode, when Dib lost at the end I assumed he was hauled away by Zim's Roboparents. But chances are I mixed this up with the conclusion of that one episode of Teen Titans where Robin goes to the mountains to train with an old master.

For the actual ending, Dib's weapon of choice was destroyed, and he just gave up. It was funny, and established the show's firm balance between darkness and hilarity. To be fair, I didn't see this episode as much when it was new.

Invader Zim: Dark Harvest

Yep, the big one, depending on who you ask. There were a couple of things I didn't remember correctly. Firstly, what happened to Torque. I had assume Dib was gonna try and find a secret contact, but Zim murdered him. Then I thought, wait a second, nobody except Gretchen likes Dib. Nope, turns out Dib lost an otherwise apathetic Torque and Dib's realization was more comedic given the circumstances. It also didn't dawn on me why there were feathers, then lol, pigeon head.

Then the ending. I had assumed Zim took away Dib's vocal cords and made him sound like a cow... past me was not very bright. I didn't know the theme of the episode but Zim was stealing organs to clear a physical due to his anatomy being a giveaway he wasn't human. But, here's the actual thing. Lungs were the last thing Zim needed, he took one of Torque's, and he took one of Dib's, having replaced everyone's organs with random items, and for Dib, a tipping cow toy was the replacement for him.

I assumed Dib couldn't speak, but it turns out, yes he could, the only reason he made the cow noise was because, lungs are needed to breathe, and the cow toy was it. Once more, it was funnier than I remembered it, and I love the show for it.

Odd SpongeBob Nightmare

I have weird dreams, some of which involving cartoons, otherwise standard dream weirdness. I had one where SpongeBob and Patrick travel to Rock Bottom for some reason, and as they descend, their faces become more distorted. Well it turns out this was built on a forgotten memory. This was actually me remembering an episode of Rocko's Modern Life, Carnival Knowledge, where Rocko and Heffer ride a roller coaster and the g-force leads to the faces I saw in my nightmare.

I rarely ever saw Rocko's Modern Life back then, have mercy how times do change.

Bonus: The Simpsons: Various Scenes

This wasn't substantial enough to justify a full section, and a lot of them are the same. To sum up, I thought most scenes in The Simpsons were shorter than they actually were. Some examples include the climax of the hockey game in that episode, Marge's flashbacks in the aerophobia episode and the fate of Ozzie Smith in Homer at the Bat.

Obviously, these were longer than I recall, and that sums that up.