Saluton, amikoj! This week Ian and I were joined at Sneaky Dragon headquarters by Toren Atkinson from the Caustic Soda podcast. Not only is Toren an artist and podcaster, he also plays in the band The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. Let’s start our regular weekly links post with a video from Toren’s band:
Let’s hear it for hard-rocking, nerds!
Sports were mentioned briefly – very briefly – but pretty quickly we were back on course and started talking about athletes and superheroes. There doesn’t seem to be too many athletes who become superheroes, but there is the villain The Sportsmaster. Here he is, going on vacation:
It’s good to know that villains have families and responsibilities too. (Actually, no it isn’t.)
Toren brought up the animated series Bionic 6. Not even Ian remembered this show. Here’s the theme song to jog your memory:
Ugh. Eighties music and horrible animation. The show was probably really wholesome too. *shudder*
Our show quickly devolved into a conversation about our fantasy Star Trek bridge crew. Ian’s choice for Captain? Captain Pike, also known as “Wheels”.
Apparently the fellow who put up that clip plans to build the laziest con costume ever.
Toren’s choice for bridge crew – I don’t think as captain, but I could be wrong – was the Borg Queen from one of the countless Star Trek movies.
*snore* What a boring introduction to that character! *yawn*
My choice was a “sexy female robot” from a particular episode I hadn’t seen all of, but attempted to describe. Ian thought it was “Mudd’s Women”:
But after a little Interweb research I discovered the episode was called “What Are Little Girls Made Of”. (To be fair to Toren and Ian, my description of the show was completely wrong.) This little video from the nerdcore band Five Year Mission sums up the episode pretty well:
I also wanted to include this even shorter summary:
Yep. That about sums it up.
Speaking of the future:
As Ian said, “Never forget that in the world of the Jetsons, somewhere on the ground is a tombstone with your name on it.” On the other hand, isn’t that true about Star Trek or any other movie, show or book set in the future? I can’t get too worked up about it.
We talked a little bit about Warner Bros. cartoons wholesale robbery of characters and jokes from radio shows and the movies (“HENREEEEE!”). One of the most egregious rip offs, in my opinion, was the appropriation of the Senator Claghorn character from the Fred Allen radio show segment Allen’s Alley for the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons. Here is Kenny Delmar – who created the character – in Claghorn’s one and only film appearance:
Toren had never heard of Fred Allen before. I guess I’m more of a comedy nerd than he is. If you can stand just audio without seeing moving images, here is a short audio clip from the old Fred Allen Show.
Great stuff!
We brought up the example of the Jack Benny Show being turned into a cartoon, but that case was a bit different as the original cast was involved in The Mouse That Jack Built. Of course, Mel Blanc was a regular on the Jack Benny Show.
This cartoon featuring two mice using the Abbot and Costello voices and schtick is closer to what we were talking about. Apparently, the voices were done by Mel Blanc and writer Tedd Pierce.
What can I say? “HEN-REE! Henry Aldich!” “Coming, mother!”
It’s in about a million Warner Bros. cartoons.
Anyway, we talked about the great cartoons like Warner Bros. and then we talked about the f***ed up s*** cartoons like Transformers:
This is all meaningless to me. I think that character’s name is “Wheels”.
This is my fault. I asked if la Tour Eiffel got blowed up in the GI Joe film. The answer was, “Mais oui!”
Poor old Eiffel Tower. Hey, people, when you’re running away from something toppling over, run in a sideways direction from the object!
Poor old Eiffel Tower.
Did you know that Cobra Commander appeared on The Transformers? Me neither! I don’t even know who Cobra Commander is. You know what? Ian didn’t know either, but Toren did. Videographic evidence follows:
I still don’t know who Cobra Commander is! Is he the burly guy with the lispy voice or Rorschach?
We all agreed the Cobra Commander should have been played by Charles Nelson Reilly!
Hey, I remember colouring my Doodle Art with Bic Banana felt pens.
Was it a good thing that we stopped talking about Transformers and GI Joe only to talk about Gilligan’s Island instead? Ehh.
That makes no sense. No sense at all.
Toren talked about the game show Concentration. I couldn’t remember it (naturally), but IAN COULDN’T REMEMBER IT EITHER!!!
Wow, no wonder we couldn’t remember it. That is DULL!
We tried to guess what language is spoken in heaven and decided it would probably be Esperanto.
What the…??? International language??? They sounded like a bunch of furriners! I can see why the radio station is called 3ZZZ with that bunch of stiffs. I’ve changed my vote to “not Esperanto.”
As a child my parents not-unreasonably banned this show in the house. I did see it later as a teenager and I have to say the ban was probably related to its quality.
An interesting fact is that the Theme from S.W.A.T. went to Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart in 1976.
We talked about the Green Hornet, but I can’t remember why.
I think that was Al Hirt on trumpet. The Green Hornet is not to be confused with the Brown Hornet:
It is easy to mix them up. I watched this show when I was a kid. In other words, I wasted a lot of time watching junk as a kid.
And on that note, it’s time to say “diaŭn ĉiu”! See you next week!