A meaty treat for you to sink your teeth into this morning, loyal viewers. Consider this more of a brunch than a breakfast if you will. To celebrate the stupendous event of the release of the first season of the outstanding Freakazoid! we present four, crazed episodes. Nestled in between these delectable treats lies a surreal, French delicacy: La Planète Sauvage (Fantastic Planet). If you have any questions about your meal, the waiter will be happy to answer them:
• Freakazoid!: “A Matter of Love”, in which Cosgrove gets himself a girlfriend; a girlfriend who may not be what she seems. HUGGBEE!
• Freakazoid!: “The Wrath of Guitierrez”. Guitierrez zaps Freakazoid into a video-game world in order to destroy him.
• La Planète Sauvage (Fantastic Planet) René Laloux’s amazingly bizarre science fiction classic set in a future where human, called Oms, have been taken by the gigantic Draag to their home planet and kept as pets; but the the siren call of freedom is strong and rebellion is fermenting among the Oms. Fantastic Planet is one of those films whose effect on me has not been lost, even after multiple viewing. It remains just as strange and wonderful as it did when I first saw it.
• MUSICAL INTERMISSIONThanks, Evil Jim!
• La Planète Sauvage continues, everyone take your seats.
• Freakazoid!: “The Island of Dr. Mystico”. Freakazoid is entrusted with transporting the city’s top villains to the remote country of France. Oh crap, is that Candlejack in that pic-
• Freakazoid!: “Virtual Freak”. Picture this: In a normal mall, in a normal arcade a game is being assembled by two men named Bob who both share a secret desire to date Agent Scully of the X-Files. The game is rumored to be neato torpedo. OR IS IT!?
A 1979 documentary focused on gang culture in the South Bronx. The film focuses on two gangs, the Savage Skulls and the Nomads — whose members have such colorful sobriquets as Fly, Comanche, and Crazy Joe — as well as Bob Werner, a member of the Youth Gangs Task Force that oversaw the area at that time. While it doesn’t spend a whole lot of time really digging into just how violent these gangs were, it does offer an interesting snapshot of New York at the time. Crime in the 70s was on a slow and steady upward climb as the city verged on the edge of bankruptcy and the increase in gang activity was one of the more direct results of an ever growing under class confined to the outer boroughs. Few perhaps realized how bad it would become in the 80s with the introduction of crack until its peak in the early 90s.
Also, notable for the plethora of 70s pornstar moustaches on display.
Note: the video itself is fine, however the language contained therein is of the NSFW variety.
Before the epic meme of doing crazed things with Garfield strips put Fatal Farm in the upper echelons of internet stardom they had previously worked on a number of reworkings of classic televison intros; none of which were nearly as disturbing as their reworking of DuckTales in which Webbigail “Webby” Vanderquack meets a hottie on myspace. Unfortunately said hottie is, in reality, a Beagle Boy cruising for underage ducks to exploit for child pornography. A harrowing tale with a twist that will stay with you long after the clip has ended; most likely a queasy, empty feeling from having watched your beautiful childhood memories perverted and degraded. On a web-cam. In a basement dungeon.
Our deepest apologies, dear readers, for having fallen down on the job as of late in regards to one of our most sacred traditions. Needless to say, we are filled with a great sense of shame and assure you it will not happen again. If, in the future, one of us is unable to fulfill their obligations our newly acquired team of Korean animators will leap into action, producing original cartoons for your enjoyment, although in all honesty I personally cannot guarantee this. You see, by “team of Korean animators” I actually mean a Korean family that Eliza met — and subsequently forced into her windowless van — while running errands at Home Depot. They have tried to reason with her, explaining that they are involved in other professions, the father is a salesman for a lighting manufacturer and his wife works as a bank teller. The children are, well, children.
Eliza would hear none of it however, either assuming that they were lying or under the impression that all people of Korean descent have an innate ability to animate. The rest of the staff has done their best to ignore the situation, knowing full well that once Miss Gauger has set her mind on something, one has little chance of ever changing her opinion. It is for this reason that we do nothing when she insists that her aforementioned van has the ability to travel through time or that Qais is, in her words, “a spy sent by space Turks to steal her chocolate secrets.” Regardless it has been uncomfortable, the tired and nervous familial unit has taken up residence in our break room where they were horrified to find only four items : coffee, tea, pipe tobacco, and squid chips. It would be worse when they found out that these items were our sole sources of sustenance. The children, unsurprisingly, did not take well to the tobacco. Perhaps we should send out for food.
Ah well, I’m sure they’ll be fine, besides it’s cartoon time! Click through, loyal Ectomites, and witness their triumphant return!
P.S. Also, remember that if you visit the YouTube page for a particular video you have the option to watch it in high quality. Especially well suited to the anime.
As you know yesterday was Brownlee’s birthday which meant that today I had to take an extra long shower. It’s no use though, no matter how long I scrub I just can’t get clean. In any event here is a nice little animated sandwich of spoof-tastic Fox Kids and Kids’ WB cartoons between two, moist slices of anime. I hope they will entertain you, our loyal readership, and I pray that, perhaps, they will help me to repress the events of last evening. Please, God…
• FLCL: We’ve entered the final half of this spectacular mini-series, and only two more to go. Will you just look at those eyebrows.
•Eek! The Cat and The Terrible Thunderlizards: Eek! did a number of film spoofs during its run and the two that stand out, to me, are “Lord of the Fleas” in which Eek is trapped in a shopping mall with some penguins — one of whom hysterically exclaims “Shut-up, Piggy!” — and this episode entitled “Eekpocalypse Now!, which thoroughly hits upon every major joke one could make about Coppola’s film. This one is for the adults, unless you were an eight year-old who loved movies about Vietnam. The Terrible Thunderlizards was its own show but was later merged with Eek! to create a variety show more like our next two entries.
•Tiny Toons: “A Quack in the Quarks” is the second episode of this seminal show and features a loose parody of Star Wars and a plethora of fourth wall shattering humor. In this episode Plucky Duck is kidnapped by aliens to Planet X to save it from the nefarious plot of Duck Vader. This was the beginning of a real golden age of Warner Brothers cartoons in the late 80s/early 90s that include Animaniacs, Freakazoid, and the Animaniacs spin-off Pinky and The Brain. Oh, and a Watchmen reference!
•Animaniacs “Super Strong Warner Siblings” is a brilliant send-up of the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers which always marked the end of cartoon time. Animaniacs also did an Apocalypse Now parody which, while excellent, did not follow the plot as closely as Eek!. Next up is one of the many “Good Idea, Bad Idea” clips followed by my favorite, Pinky and The Brain. In this episode, entitled “Battle for the Planet”, Brain once again acknowledges his Orson Welles influence by attempting to fake an alien invasion ala the Mercury Theater’s broadcast of War of the Worlds.
•Paranoia Agent: Someone has some unpleasant secrets…
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
