The terror of golf course: An animated display of the effects of repeated jenkem abuse. I’m still unsure as to whether it’s the animator, Shintaro Kago, or the animated that’s been imbibing a bit too much sewage.
SuperGo!: Giant bear-monsters, ninjas, and snack envy. That’s all you should really need to know.
One: Michael Levy combines jazz and animation to a delightfully abstract effect.
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FOT – Champion of the World: Kiwi animator Alex Dron manages to perfectly capture exactly what I imagine when I hear the words “New Zealand”.
De Monsters: A few of my favorite clips from the Volstok Telefunken series of the same name.
Ye gods, this is a momentous occasion! Today is the 50th anniversary of Saturday Morning Cartoons! It seems like just yesterday that John Brownlee posted the first installment, one Saturday morning after waking up still drunk from the night before. Yes, it’s been quite a ride. We want to thank Cthulhu, our mommas, Sidney Poitier and all our fans who have supported us through fifty episodes. This one’s for you.
Of course, this might all be a bit more impressive if it wasn’t a weekly feature and if the installment previous to this hadn’t gone up in, you know, December. Ah well, that’s show business! On to the ‘toons!
•Dog of Man – The first of three delightfully bizarre cartoons by British animator David Firth. It’s the touching story of a man, his dog, and a tumor.
•Home Movies: “History” – If you are a fan of Home Movies then I present to you another classic adventure of Brendan, Jason, and Melissa. If you do not: WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU HOW CAN YOU NOT LIKE THIS SHOW!? IMMA KEEP POSTING THEM TIL YOU LIKE IT!!!!1! BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGLE!
•Alan: An Alternative Super Hero – Alan is a superhero with a very specific power.
•Angst – André has been tortured by the wind his entire life. No wonder, then, that he is terrified of it. Directed by Emiel Penders.
•Dr. Tran: “100% ICE” pts. 1 & 2 – Oh boy, is that a new episode of everyone’s favorite action hero I see? I think it is.
•Video Dating Tape – Jake seems like quite a catch.
Well, it’s not like we could have avoided it forever. This Thursday marks that most expensive of holidays; the day some celebrate an imaginary person’s birthday by giving each other presents and some celebrate an imaginary person breaking into their home to leave gifts for them. Truly, it is the most magical time of the year. In the spirit of such activities, Ectomo presents a small sampling of the plethora of Christmas themed animated specials that have littered the airwaves over the years. We hope you enjoy or, at the very least, do no retch.
• A Charlie Brown Christmas: For the two or three people who haven’t seen this the plot is as follows. Charlie Brown, not understanding the meaning of Christmas, is enlisted to direct a Christmas play but is stymied by everyone’s desire to dance repetitively. He then buys a horribly stunted coniferous tree for the play and everyone laughs. Then Linus quotes the Bible. The End.
• Freakazoid!: “In Arms Way” What other cartoon would have a villain named Arms Akimbo?
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas: Chuck Jones animated version of the Dr. Seuss story with voice work by Boris Karloff. That’s all you need to know.
• Mickey’s Christmas Carol: Back when Disney produced animated cartoons of quality they made this, perhaps one of the best adaptations of Charles Dickens’s classic tale. Consider it the condensed version. The animation in this one, like the above entry, is simply top-notch.
• He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special: I…I really have no idea. At some point in the 80s He-Man and She-Ra had a Christmas special. This makes my brain weep.
• Monkey Dust: Season 3, episode 2 in which the Paedofinder General interupts a school nativity play, Ivan Dobsky has a “most terriblest nightmare” in which he receives a Playstation for Christmas — likening its complexity to “pong, but with three bats” — and “The International Revolutionary Jihad for the Liberation of the Islamic Republic of Great Britain” prepare to blow themselves up in the middle of a shopping center. All this, and more, in another twisted episode of Monkey Dust.
Lastly, [adult swim], while not allowing anything as convenient as embedding because they are jerks, has a section with all of their Christmas themed episodes in one place. So, if you are looking for your fix of Sealab 2021, Venture Bros., Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken, etc.this is where you want to go.
Everything good about MTV lives in a world that exists, long since passed, in the memories of those who were there called “Remember When”. It’s a world where Music Television was actually music, on television and where the newest and craziest in modern animation was shown on something called Liquid Television accompanied by shows like Beavis and Butthead, Aeon Flux, The Head, and The Maxx. It is a place that many look back on with great fondness with good reason.
My relationship with MTV was not immediate. It was instead something that I had to acquire through a middleman, my family not having cable. It was something that I could only watch whilst visiting a friend or, in the case of The Maxx and Aeon Flux, by having it taped by my friend Will. It was a weekly ritual, the same VHS cassette exchanged back and forth, previous episodes taped over to make room for my fix. If I had more foresight, I would have no doubt bought extra cassettes so a to preserve the series but, alas, I was not the forward thinking in my youth.
The Maxx remains a show that, upon repeated viewings all these years later, has lost none of its impact. It still works, at least for me. Surely, it can be argued that, in its abbreviated form, it is lacking in comparison to the comic book that spawned it, and there is some truth there. The relationships that tie all of these wounded characters together are explored far less here, especially the relationship between Julie and the titular hero. This can be forgiven though, no television series could have really handled Sam Keith’s twisted, meandering story and psychological musings. The man himself could barely handle it, his panels cramped and scattered, requiring arrows to guide the reader’s eye.
The TV show is, then, The Maxx distilled and in that regard it succeeds brilliantly. Keith’s artwork animates beautifully and the voice work and music are some of the best in a cartoon. It is a starkly melancholy show, something I’m not sure everyone was expecting from a cartoon. Featuring none of the bombast of Aeon Flux or The Head it was instead an exploration of trauma, violence, and, ultimately, redemption. It is a show well deserving of your Saturday morning if you’ve not seen it before and well worth it for those who have; to sit down and look back to the world of “Remember When”.
Just a note: Take a look at this while you can for the YouTube Police’s wrath is swift and brutal.
And by that I of course mean one Thanksgiving special followed by a group of random, animated detritus. Yes, this week is Thanksgiving — real, American Thanksgiving, not that cheap, Canadian imitation — the day on which we can all stuff ourselves with food until we collapse into a carbohydrate induced coma and after which we begin the long, arduous task of celebrating Christmas for a month.
Also, this is my six hundred and sixty sixth post. Coincidence? Who cares!?
• A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving: I’m of two minds when it comes to Charles Schultz’s creation in both print and on screen. Part of me loathes its saccharine sweet sentimentality and its trite, overtly Christian preaching and another part admires the man’s artistic and creative ability and the cartoons remain firmly fixed in my animated childhood memory. It is perhaps a testament to Peanuts that my usually dominant, cynical side uncharacteristically loses this particular battle.
• Home Movies: “Curses”: I’ve touted my love for Home Movies before so all I will say is if you don’t like it you are insane or brain dead. In this episode our diminutive filmmakers explore the use of foul language and its humorous effects. Make sure to watch out for the hidden surprise right before the credits.
• The Ren & Stimpy Show: The second episode — counting the pilot — featuring the adventures of everyone’s favorite dog and cat. Also featuring Log! I’m sure this will be pulled by the end o the day so get it while it’s hot.
• Dexter’s Laboratory: “Opposites Attract”: Another show that rarely shows up on YouTube and will most surely be pulled. Not the best episode featuring Genndy Tartakovsky’s diminutive mad scientist, but you take what you can get.
•Korgoth of Barbaria: Dear [adult swim], I’m writing to inquire as to what, exactly, is wrong with you. No really, I would like to know why you continue giving asshats like Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim money to churn out hours of retarded pap while shelving truly brilliant ideas like Korgoth of Barbaria. If you find men dressing in drag to be that funny, might I suggest you export your Tim & Eric stuff to England, it is my understanding that they too like that sort of thing. Afterwards, you can pull your heads out of your asses and start to produce more shows that are, you know, good. Regards, Ross Rosenberg
Monkey Dust is a hard cartoon to describe without completely blowing the premise and turning people away from it insofar as it comes off as completely disturbed. Which it most certainly is. Nevertheless, I have been obsessed with it since I found out about it and, like most obsessions, it needs to be shared.
Monkey Dust is a nightmare vision of Britain, a dark, twisted other world full of giant advertising conglomerates like Labia, who takes the job of rebranding cancer as “Closure”, an attractive end-of-life option. Its citizens are no less bizarre. Take Mr. Ivan Dobsky, The Meat-Safe Murderer or so he was known until he was cleared 27 years later. He himself always said he “never done it. I only said I done it so they would take the electrodes of me nipples.” Then there’s Geoff, the first-time cottager, who despite his meek, introverted personality holds the lofty goal of fellating a complete stranger in a public place. There’s also Clive, who constantly comes home late only to tell his wife a lie based on the lyrics to The Eagles’s “Hotel California”, inept chat-room pedophiles, pretentious yuppies, and classically trained actors.
These series of interconnected vignettes and recurring characters make for a delightfully sick experience but it is no doubt one you will either love or hate. Some may be turned off by the humor on display here as it is unapologetically dark; but for those who enjoy their laughs more on the grim side of things you are in for quite a treat.
This bright morn on SMC, three times three special treats: Tick vs. the Tick; Garfield vs. Lasagna Cat; Boris Badunov vs. Boris Gonunov!
And that’s just the appetizer! For the main course, enjoy the second and third episodes of Kimi wa Petto, the beautiful story of an all-too-successful career woman who finds a broken boy in a cardboard box, and decides to keep him. Continue Reading…
Starting off your Saturday on a bit of a down note, Ectomo presents Isao Takahata’s Hotaru no Haka, Grave of the Fireflies, based on the book by Akiyuki Nosaka of the same name. Released in 1988, with animation production by Studio Ghibli, Grave of the Fireflies tells the story of Seita and his younger sister Setsuko, orphaned after the loss of their parents in World War II; their mother in the fiire-bombing of Kobe, and their father who served in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Forced to live with a relative, who treats them as little more than a burden while selling their mother’s kimono’s to buy rice for herself, they eventually leave and take up residence in an abandoned bomb shelter.
Grave of the Fireflies is a tough film to watch, and a movie which begins with the death of the young, main character was probably not what many audiences were expecting to see when it was released in Japan as a double feature with Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro. It is also the only Studio Ghibli movie the Disney does not have the rights to distribute in the U.S., meaning that it has not seen the same, widespread release here. It is a film that should be seen at least once, whether one is a fan of animated features or not, remaining just as powerful now as it was 20 years ago.
It’s catch-as-catch-can this Saturday on Ectomo. Strolling through the fields of internet, harvesting what we could, no particular theme presented itself, no one flavor stood out. So today it’s a stew of animation goodness, a hodgepodge of styles and tastes; because sometimes you have to make the best of what’s lying around.
Dr. Tran “Dickable Afternoons”: “Remember those good times at home, in the 1800s, back when you and the neighborhood rowdies would romp around, kicking an old piece of rope? And then Mom would call you inside, where you’d all gather at the dining-room table, while she served up a steaming hot plate of Dr. Tran’s Old Fashioned Peppermint Dickables.”
Ark: In the future a mysterious pandemic has decimated the population of the world. Survivors have retreated to huge ships and set out for uninhabited lands. The exodus has begun, under the leadership of one man.
Log Driver’s Waltz: I was reprimanded for not including this in my Canadian themed SMCs of a few weeks ago, so I include it here now. Chicks dig log drivers.
Strange Invaders: Some couples want to have a baby so badly, they don’t care how they come by it, even if it falls, glowing, from the sky. Watching this, an episode of Invader Zim featuring space aliens who resembled human babies came to mind. Could this have been the inspiration for Vasquez and Co.?
The Tick “The Tick vs. The Tick”: It was mentioned in the ectochat earlier this week that the SMCs needed more Tick, and I agree. In this episode, The Tick and Arthur go to a superhero nightclub. However, it seems that there is already another gentleman who goes by The Tick, and he’s not ready to give up the name. Also, “I’m the Evil Midnight Bomber, What Bombs At Midnight!”
Last month I was lucky enough to wave goodbye to a four year long waking nightmare as I walked out of the offices of my employer for the last time. The kind of gratification that comes from willful unemployment is a feeling that only very specific circumstances can inspire, and as such, is the theme for today’s Saturday Morning Cartoons.
The Gloaming: More stop-motion than animation, this captures the feeling of endless toil teetering on the brink of catastrophe well enough that it deserves a temporary pass for today’s panel.
The Ascension: An obscenely large amount of time was spent at my former job imagining upper management hooting at one another in the manner of chimps. Unsurprisingly, it’s not all that difficult even if you lack imagination and/or a forebrain.
Irving the Socially Awkward Bee: Every office has an Irving.
Evil Corporate Zombies: Regardless of their stated occupation, every single corporation of a certain size has at least a single department devoted to the creation of zombies and super virii.
Hold That Lift: I’m told it’s not like this in all offices, but at my former slave-mine the elevator wasn’t just a convenient excuse for fat people, pregnant women, and the disabled to be lazy. No, the elevator was a weapon of passive aggressive retaliation and caste system enforcement. We liked to multitask.
The Office Boy: I’m amazed someone actually captured video of my first frantic days in the strange world that is corporate America.
An apology in advance to those readers who appreciate more of a mix in their Saturday Morning Cartoons, more of a grab-bag of treats with which to satisfy their dilettantish sweet tooth. Today we present a meal, a robust, full flavored dish chock full of aromatic spices and out of control insanity. Today Ectomo is proud to present Satoshi Kon’s Paprika.
Paprika is set in the near future and focuses on a new type of psychotherapy treatment called dream therapy. Using a device known as a “DC Mini”, therapists are able to enter the dreams of their patients. The story begins with Doctor Atsuko Chiba, who uses the alter-ego known as Paprika during therapy sessions, counseling one Detective Konakawa Toshimi. The nature of the sessions is a closely guarded secret as the use of the DC Mini is unsanctioned, and its existence is being kept from the press. Things quickly go wrong, however, when three of the machines are stolen, and so begins the story proper.
The themes present in Paprika are well-trodden by Kon. He has almost a singular obsession with the human subconscious — especially in terms of a larger, societal subconscious — and pop culture. Paprika does not stray too far from this territory but the torrent of imagery that Kon throws at the viewer makes the experience feel fresh nevertheless. It also strikes me upon each subsequent viewing how much Kon is seemingly aping Hayao Miyazaki —probably the most successful current animator coming out of Japan by western standards. Whether this is intentional or not I cannot be sure, but he does it well enough, and sparingly enough, that the film is not bogged down by a feeling that one is watching, say, Spirited Away II: The Revenge
Paprika really is a fantastic film, and for those of you who are not as enthusiastic about anime, or who downright loathe it, I would still urge you to give it a try. Kon’s work is unlike most of Japanese animation that makes it to our shores and I feel that, given the chance, it may surprise you.
I just received a voicemail from Qais, who was appointed this week’s Toontwink via lottery, pleading, and feats of strength. The message was mostly garbled screaming, which I take to mean he’s still busy with his Flynn DeMarco sleepover or whatever.
Seeing as I am currently at my day job, dreaming about my real job, propped by a tripod fashioned of human femurs over a sweltering keyboard, this is really all we can afford: a casually perverse Japanese TV drama about a scorned woman who finds a beautiful young man half-dead in a cardboard box, and then, wait for it, drags him into her apartment.
Originally intended as a Japanese remake of the Seattle documentary film about my quest for Ectomo’s new writers (“Bughunter Q: Eliza Gauger and the Search for the New Scum)”, something is lost in the translation, here. But the essence, the geist of the tale is the same.
Please enjoy, with our compliments, the first episode of Kimi Wa Petto.
Oktapodi: The tenacity of an amorous octopus is a terrifying thing to witness. While divorce rates soar the Octopi remain constant companions.
The Bugfather: An advertising spot for Top End Pest Control by The Peoples Republic of Animation. If commercials were this entertaining in the states I wouldn’t be using my TV as a beehive.
NatGeo: A series of spots produced for National Geographic intended to teach children the finer points of ecological awareness. Fun Fact: Banana peels actually do make that noise when you hurl them at animals. My bathtub, however, is the only one that actually speaks … and only to me.
Big Buck Bunny: This CC licensed animation follows in the footsteps of Ratatouille as a paving stone on the path down into the depths of the uncanny valley.
Elephants Dream: Originally I wasn’t going to include this as it doesn’t quite fit the theme. However, it’s so beautiful and has so many images seemingly ripped from my own monstrous nocturnal imaginings that I couldn’t help but to share it with you all.
Ah, Canada, that frozen wonderland to the north, with its lush, rolling fields of moose, beer waterfalls, and socialized medicine. Truly, it is a snow covered Eden. This week’s Saturday Morning Cartoons is (mostly) presented by Canada, featuring animators (mostly) from Canada, or films distributed (mostly) by The National Film Board of Canada. If you are so inclined (and you should be) all of these videos, with the exception of the first, can be viewed in a higher resolution on YouTube.
• The Cat Came Back: From Cordell Barker. Mr. Johnson has a yellow cat, which he is desperately trying to rid himself of. His efforts prove…unsuccessful.
• Last Time in Clerkenwell: Russian animator Alex Budovsky’s follow-up to Bathtime in Clerkenwell featuring more mind bending flash animation and infectious music.
• The Danish Poet: Torill Kove’s 2007 Oscar winning mediation on her birth, and the serendipitous events which led to it. Simple, clean lines lend this one a children’s book aesthetic which works perfectly.
• Ryan: Directed by Chris Landreth, Ryan is an animated tribute to Canadian animator Ryan Larkin. Thirty years ago, at the National Film Board of Canada, Ryan produced some of the most influential animated films of his time. Winner of an Oscar in 2005, it’s a film whose visuals tell just as much of its story as its dialogue does.
• How Wings Are Attached to the Backs of Angels: Craig Welch’s fantastic, creepy, surreal, Gorey-esque little film about a scientist’s quest for knowledge that is, perhaps, reserved for beings other than mere mortals. Cross hatching should be used more often in animation.
• Yellow Sticky Notes: Nine years worth of Jeff Chiba Stearns’s To-Do lists, written on sticky notes, animated with, well, sticky notes. Trust me, it works.
• Harvey Krumpet: I’m a big fan of Australian animator Adam Elliot’s work, having first seen his shorts Brother, Uncle, and Cousin through The Animation Show. Harvey Krumpet, narrated by Geoffrey Rush, continues the tradition of Elliot’s intimate storytelling; detailing the life of Harvey Krumpet, from his birth in Poland to the end of his life in Australia.
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.
