Eliza put out a call for suggestions and the Ectomite Hive Mind responded with a bevy of bizarre links and nostalgic requests leaving us with a hodge-podge of old childhood favorites and surreal art-house films. Thanks to everyone who took the time to post and if you don’t see your contribution here, rest assured it will make an appearance in the very near future. Now, go Ectomomites! TO THE JUMP!
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.
It comes as no surprise that the unifying force between the constantly warring Octopi and their Squid cousins comes in the form of Japanese schoolgirls.
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…
The U.S. Navy would do well to take note of these commercials. While theysubjectus to Keith David narrating footage of damp Navy personnel doing their best to look grim and determined and not, say, constipated to the melodious grunting of generic Nü Metal the Japanese have taken a different and, perhaps, more efficient tact. Aware that the public at large is aware that war is a serious undertaking, the Japanese Maritime Defense Force entices recruits by making you feel that by enlisting you too can be part of a crack force of anime superheroes, prepared to protect your homeland. Or you can be part of a dance troupe specializing in synchronized hip gyrations. Whichever floats your boat, so to speak.
It’s Saturday! These are cartoons! It is not, however, morning. Two out of three ain’t bad though!
• FLCL continues and just gets stranger and stranger.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog. Why isn’t this how on DVD? WHY? This episode, entitled “The Tower of Doctor Zalost” is among the show’s best. The second short included in this particular show was entitled The Mask which is about a cat and a bunny who are lesbians. Unfortunately I couldn’t find it. Feel free to link to it in the comments if you come across it.
• Darkwing Duck in “Twin Beaks”. I loved this show when it was on. This particular episode is a brilliant spoof of, you guessed it, Twin Peaks and includes references such as a talking log, and a diner with excellent pie and “darn good coffee”. They manage to make it just as surreal as David Lynch’s murder mystery. Also, bonus Far Side joke!
• Ducktales: “Much Ado About Scrooge”. Scrooge and the boys go after the lost, cursed play of William Drakespeare. Ducktales and Darkwing Duck were set in the same world and characters like Launchpad and Gizmoduck featured prominently in both shows.
• Paranoia Agent: “Double Lips”. After being attacked by Lil’ Slugger, Yuichi’s name is cleared and he can finally relax. His tutor, Harumi Chono,unfortunately has other things to worry about. She has a second personality named Maria who spends her nights as a prostitute. Harumi has no control of herself during this time, nor can she recall what happened afterwards. After receiving a marriage proposal, Harumi decides to get rid of Maria, but can she? This one has some sex edited out of it so that YouTube wouldn’t take it down. Just an FYI.
Witness the candy deliciousness that is Saturday morning cartoons: creamy, comedy goodness in a sweet, crunchy anime shell!
• FLCL continues its meteoric, guitar wielding, robot spooging, sexually awkward descent into madness, in the second episode, “Firestarter”.
• Some of my earliest and fondest memories of Nickelodeon involve Rocko’s Modern Life. Featured today are two episodes, “No Pain, No Gain” and “Unbalanced Load”. The intor is the version from season two, featuring the talents of The B-52s.
• I am no fan of Seinfeld so I maintain that Duckman is the best work Jason Alexander has ever done. “The Noir Gang” does a fantastic job of incorporating the show’s perverted, foul-mouthed detective and porcine sidekick into a black and white film noir motif.
• If you had told me that a re-boot of Max Fleischer’s Felix the Cat would be worth it, I may have condescendingly sniffed at the idea. However Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat was an amazing cornucopia of oddity and downright weirdness. Two episodes for you: “Phony Phelix” and “The Petrified Cheese” which features a cleverly named shamus named Seamus. “Ok, pally, let me fill you in on the facts. The skinny. The scam. The poop.”
• Paranoia Agent “The Golden Shoes”. Who is Lil’ Slugger? For Yuichi “Ichi” Taira, the most popular kid in school, top of his class in academics and sports, who plans to run for Student Council President, his golden roller blades and red baseball cap are cause for growing concern among his peers, turning his life upside down. Now, paranoid and looking for a way out of this new nightmare, he focuses his attention on foreign transfer student Shogo “Usshi” Ushiyama, convince he is trying to ruin him.
Take 5’s PSP strategy game Jeanne D’Arc takes the legend of La Pucelle and twists the history in such a way that the English command armadas of pig demons, skeletons, and snake men against the noble French peasantry, who are led by Jeanne herself, wielding a magical bracelet that allows her to transform into a cyborg super-knight when she makes a Power Rangers style wrist snap.
I’m loving it. Jeanne D’Arc’s unapologetic dismissal of history is ninety percent of its charm. But for those expecting a more dry, ponderous and historically-accurate strategy game, the first five minutes are a real mind-bender, as a cadaverous Duke of Bedford tells his young nephew, King Henry VI, the real reason behind the 100 Years War: a demon from another dimension invading Earth with an army of monsters that could only be stopped by a quintuplet of laser-shooting power knights.
By the end of the video? King Henry looks like he’s about to start projectile spewing pea soup, the Duke of Bedford is sporting shadow tentacles from his jester hat, and a loyal retainer has been slurped up into another dimension. And it gets even better! This game is just totally awesome.
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.
