Branded in the 80s!

Branded in the 80s! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com Branded in the 80s is an ongoing discussion about the pop culture I've grown up with and loved since I was a kid. en Copyright Shawn Robare 2009 smurfwreck77@bellsouth.net (Shawn Robare) Liberated Syndication - libsyn.com podcasts@libsyn.com (Liberated Syndication) Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:00:00 GMT 180 Just me waxing nostalgic for all the crap I loved in the 80's. A podcast about musing on the past, 80's nostalgia, toys, cartoons, Garbage Pail Kids, movies, cooking and all the other crap I'm obsessed with. I'll try and make with some funny, but I'll probably just be lame. Bah weep granna, weep, ninny bom. E-mail any questions, comments or hate mail to asksmurfwreck@bellsouth.net. nostalgia, 1980, 80s, cartoons, cartoon, toys, movies, television, lame, Big Wheels, Wheels, Showbiz, Rock-afire Explosion, DVD, DVDs, review, seven, comics, comic books, book, geek, geeks, nerd, nerds, memories, eighties, kids, kid, slurpee, smurfwreck Shawn Michael Robare smurfwreck77@bellsouth.net Shawn Robare http://libsyn.com/podcasts/smurfwreck/images/smurfwreck_id_the_seventh.jpg Branded in the 80s! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com Branded in the 80s Microcast Episode 16, weird books... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=546000#

Chugging along with another microcast. Today features a rambling discussion of odd books including Choose Your Own Adventure style, sitcom adaptations, photonovels, the Pryde of the X-Men graphic novel adaptation of the cartoon pilot, fumetti, and Sadistik (Satanik/Killing) pulps.

]]> podcasts Fri, 6 Nov 2009 10:00:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=546000# Shawn Michael Robare No Branded Podcast Episode 15, introducing the microcast... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=545861#

In trying to get myself podcasting again I've decided to try and stop being so precious with the recording and research and just do it. My new idea to is too keep these episodes short, like under 15 minutes. Micro-podcasting. Anyway, here's the first microcast which is all about the great golden age we're living in as far as toys are concernedâ

In this episode I talk about all the properties and characters that have toys these days like the Goonies, Akira, Edward Scissorhands, Snake Plissken from Escape from New York, Ash from Army of Darkness, the new Matty Collector Ghostbusters figures, the new Matty Collector He-Man figures, as well as some older stuff that could use some new figures, namely the Karate Kid and V.

You can download the episode here.

]]> podcasts Thu, 5 Nov 2009 16:56:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=545861# Shawn Michael Robare No Sesame Street turns 40! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=545097#

I just wanted to take a second and point to a cool part of the 40th anniversary celebration of Sesame Street that's been going on for a couple weeks now. In honor of the milestone (and as a part of the upcoming release of the 40 years of Sesame Street DVD set) their website is featuring a 5 week series of voting polls to pick the best segments of the show. Each week's voting is themed with a decade, and this week it's the 80s. So head on over to the site and choose your favorite video (I'm all about the "Making Crayons" video personallyâ)

]]> general Tue, 3 Nov 2009 14:55:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=545097# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: A Full Recap! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=514995#

Well, I just wanted to do a quick re-cap of this year's Halloween Countdown. I hope everyone enjoyed the 31 Days of Monsters, I know I enjoyed putting it together. Though I kind of want to take a little breather, I can't help but think about what I'm going to do next year. Hmmmm. Anyway, enjoy the monsters!

Now I kind of want to take a 31 day nap!
]]> Halloween 2009 Sun, 1 Nov 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=514995# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #31, Oh the Horror! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=514560#

Welcome back to the final day of my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! I can't believe the month is over. In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on today, All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster was voted the creepiest by my lovely wife who just couldn't stand the look of it. This one is a Class 4 free floating spirit of some alien origin and in the episode, the Ghostbusters have to shuttle up to a space station to fight itâ

I believe this is the sort of monster that falls into the category of a horror. It's all teeth and tentacles, eyeballs and biting mouths. Sort of like the Blob, this kind of monster doesn't seem all that scary until it starts to grow and the next thing you know there's just no running from it. I guess it's a bit of fear through suffocation, and this guy is a bit more than I'd bet even Steve McQueen could handle. Lucky for us the Ghostbusters were on the job. If nothing else this monster is colored perfect for the occasion.

As for this particular cel, it's kind of neat because it's part of a scene in the episode where this monster is obscured by the gang of Ghostbusters who are trying to battle it. So this is the first time that most of this art has seen the light of day (not that you couldn't see similar shots in other scenes...) Here's a couple screen grabs, the first on the left with my cel, and a second which is a more natural shot of the creature on the right...

So that's it for the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s as another Halloween has come and by tomorrow morning it'll just be a great memory. There was a lot of great stuff posted around the internet this year, so if you want to find your way to a lot more content you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event. If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness from me, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the orange banner with King Kong.) I don't know about all of you, but I plan on kicking back and watching scary movies with my wife all day and into the night. Here's hoping we get a good lot of Trick-or-Treators, and I hope every one of you has a great Halloween. Thanks for stopping by!

]]> Halloween 2009 Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=514560# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #30, Weird Green SpiderDogCat! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=514437#

We're down to the second to last day of 2009's spooky event, the 31 Days of Monsters Countdown to Halloween. It's the eve of All Hallow's Eve I guess, and I have my second to last set of monster cels to share. In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on Halloween day.

Today's cel is a really fun one that falls into that category of a more finished image. The monster is from episode 53, "The Scaring of the Green." Typically, most background elements are separated out onto a layer of their own, be it a painting on paper behind all the stacked cels, or on a cel layer if there's movement involved in the BG elements. This cel featuring a huge green saber-toothed cat-like bog hound monster (with super creepy spider-esque eyes) chasing Mr. Venkman is a bit of an anomaly in that the BG elements, as well as both main foreground characters are all painted on one layerâ

I can see this presenting all sorts of problems in the process, most involving either syncing up the artwork in the various cels in the sequence to make sure the animation isn't so bumpy and making sure the cels are painted in the proper sequences so that everything is colored correctly and overlaps properly. Maybe the animators were going for something more crude in a chase sequence like this and any jarring jumps between cels would work towards the tone of the sequence. Either way, when taken out of context like this it works very well as a stand alone piece of art.

I do think the hunter green which was chose as the color of the beast was a little unfortunate as it blends in to the black line-work enough to make the shape and features of the creature a little hard to distinguish. Luckily I have the pencil under-drawing for this piece, thought it was a little damaged by the cel (the paint on the back of the cels sometimes bonds with the paper drawing underneath, probably in the years that these were stored in warehouses.) You get the basic drift thoughâ

Apparently, the notation NR-5 refers to leaving paint off the cel as it's transparent on my copy of the finished cel.

I was also lucky enough to find a second cel from the same episode featuring this huge bog hound that shows it with a little more definition in the final celâ

I also dig this second one because of the little bits of light yellow green paint illustrating the creature being sucked into a ghost trap. It's just a nice juxtaposition of a slight painterly style mixed with the clean cel art...

As weird as it might have turned out, I think maybe his spots should have been rendered in another color to help give him some more overall definition. Anyway...

Also, for any of you Real Ghostbusters fans out there that haven't picked up any of the new DVDs, I've decided to give away a copy of the Volume 1 Steelbook edition of the show! There are only two days left to enter, so get to the typing...

This 5-disc set contains the first 25 episodes of the series (including the 1st thirteen episode Saturday Morning run) as well as some fun special features. So what do you have to do to win this beauty? All you have to do is send me an e-mail (or click on the Creature From the Black Lagoon monster in the sidebar) and make sure to include the following:

-Please put "The Real Ghostbusters Contest" in the subject line.
-List your favorite monster/ghost/creature from the series.
-Include your name.

The deadline for entries is October 31st at Midnight eastern standard time. I'll be drawing a winner at random from the e-mails, and will respond to the winner via e-mail on November 1st. Also, if you feel inclined, I would love everyone to spread the word about the 31 Days of Monsters countdown and the contest, so hit up those social networks and tell a friend (my twitter handle is smurfwreck)!

Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for the last installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters. If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=514437# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #29, Cthulhu, eat your heart out! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513925#

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! We're into the top three. Again, as I've been reiterating all month long (imagine I'm saying this next bit super-fast like John Moschitta in a Micro Machines commercial), in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve. Whewâ

I was thinking that yesterday's flying toothy head monster would have been my top choice, and it probably would be if just on the frightening scale, but today's is the one I think might take away the award for the coolest. I've mentioned on the this site before how much I like cephalopods, and even though I haven't really gotten into H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos all that much, I do love squid monstersâ

When I first came across this guy it was after finding the cel that's below this one, the close up of a similar creature's face. So I was so happy when I found this zoomed-out view of one of the other spawn of Cathulhu to give the whole thing a bit more definition. Also, how cool is it that I found a cel where the squid monster is getting his arm blown off! As you can see from the pencil under-drawing below the destruction is being caused by a proton pack blastâ

In the original animated sequence this blast is obscured by another creature in the foreground, so it's kind of cool to finally get a clear view of this type of action in the cartoon. Looking a bit closer at the pencil drawing you can see where the animator did a bit of a test with the image by using an exacto knife to cut out the lightning-like charges that surround the blacks from the proton packs. My guess is that it was testing the backlit animation process, but I can't be sureâ

As I mentioned, I first came into contact with this guy when I found this cel below. At a distance the create looks a lot less alien, but when you do a super close-up it gets very weird looking indeedâ

These are both from one of my most favorite episodes of the series, #41 "The Collect Call of Cathulhu."

It was also written by one of my favorite animation writers, Michael Reaves, who has provided some of the best episodes in cartoon series such as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and Dungeons and Dragons. I love that for some reason or another he ended up adding the "a" to Cthulhu to differentiate it. The episode is about as steeped in H.P. Lovecraft mythos as a 30 minute syndicated cartoon could possibly be with all sorts of refrences to the world of Cthulhu like the Necronomicon, Miskatonic University, and the ficticious city of Arkham, Massachusetts. Just great stuff!

]]> Halloween 2009 Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513925# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #28, Roller-Coaster Dragon! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513911#

We're really getting down to the wire here, and imho these monsters are getting pretty messed up, especially for having aired on Network television in the mid 80s. My 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown only has three more ghoulish creeps to unveil! For those joining the party late, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today we have one of the creepiest bar none. This probably would have been my pick for the last monster, but my wife is really a better judge of what's creep-tasitc. Ever since I saw my first Friday the 13th jump-scare back in the mid 80s I've just never been all that afraid of all things horror and monster related. I also started reading Stephen King and Clive Barker at a pretty young age, so I think I was tempered on the scary. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the genre, in fact I love it to death, but I'm very rarely scared or really creeped out (giant spiders, anthropomorphized food products, and multi-armed ghoulies do a pretty good jobâ)

I'm finding that a lot of sharp teeth, especially ones at weird angles are also one of my soft spots. I think, like most people, I don't like the idea of being bitten, but being torn to shreds while being bitten seems so much worse. This guy looks like a giant shark with wings and a really flat snout, and I'll bet it would be pretty ugly of you stuck your hand in that gaping maw of his. Sort of like that scene in Jaws 4 at the beginning when the family's youngest had his arm bitten off and he held up the tattered yellow rain slicker all wet with blood and gore. I love that I also got a chance to slip in a bit of Peter and Egon before this list came to an end, especially when they're clearly frightened out of their gourds.

This monster is actually a converted set of roller-coaster cars. It was the handy work of the Boogeyman, one of the Ghostbusters most famous villains. He hails from episode #81, "The Boggeyman is Back".

As for the cel itself, I was a little bummed that the black line-work on the photocopy portion of the cel has faded so much over time. Again, not to harp on the quality issues as it worked at the time and for the the purpose it was made for, but as a collector these overseas produced cels just don't last. In part I'm glad I have a site like Branded to preserve what is left of some of these cels so that I can at least get a digital copy that'll serve as a record frozen in time for anyone who might be interested in cel animation for years to come.

If you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters. Also, if you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513911# Shawn Michael Robare No Saturday Supercast Episode 23, Halloween Cartoon Specials! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=539831#

Well, technically, it's not a Branded podcast, but the Saturday Supercast is back after a brief hiatus with episode 23. This time out Jerzy, Kevin, and I are filled with the spirit of the Great Pumpkin as we discuss some favorite Halloween specials from our youth. Throughout the 60s, 70s, & 80s kids all around the western hemisphere were treated with all sorts of cartoon and claymation specials in celebration of the creepiest of holidays. From branded mainstays like It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and Garfield's Halloween Adventure, to one-off movies and shows like the Rankin/Bass Mad Monster Party or the Canadian gem the Devil and Daniel Mouse, cartoons have become a really great part of celebrating the spooky season. In this episode we focus on a couple of obscure specials that we feel gives a nice overview of the genre as a wholeâ

Raggedy Ann & Andy in the Pumpkin Who Couldn't Smileâ

âand the off-the-wall Canadian special Witch's Night Out.

We also spend some time discussing the stable of General Mills' Monster cereals, in particular the wonderful commercials, toy premiums, and the actors that the characters pay homage to including Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi, and Boris Karloff (as well as some missed opportunities in using Vincent Price, Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing for the characters Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy.)

This episode is chock full of content including some reminiscing over great voice actors like Daws Butler, June Foray, Les Tremayne, as well as the voice talents of Gilda Radner & Catherine O'Hara. We also talk about James Mason's wonderful performance in the UPA Studios amazing rendition of Edgar Allen Poe's The Telltale Heart, the resurgence of the Universal Monsters in the late 50s through the 70s, Marvel and DC monster comics, Aurora monster model kits, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Mego Monster figures, Ben Cooper and Collegeville Halloween Costumes, the awesome skeleton costumes worn by Johnny and the Cobra Kai in the Karate Kid, the Drak Pack, the Groovie Goolies, Mary & Vincent Price's Treasury of Recipes cookbook, Tom Sito's Drawing the Line, the patented Chuck Jones devilish smile and his 60s & 70s specials including How the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, A Cricket in Times Square and Rikki Tikki Tavi, Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Banjo and Harmonica music, some Halloween history nuggets, Canadian animation and Canada's National Film Board, Nickelodeon, Doug, Mr. Men & Little Misses, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, the Halloween Specials website, the Paul Lynde Halloween Special, the iconic CBS Specials intro, the Toon into Animation podcast, Halloween is Grinch Night, and the Ghettomation podcast.

Unfortunately Witch's Night Out is out of print on VHS and currently not available for free viewing on the internet, but if you're curious about watching the Pumpkin Who Couldn't Smile, it's on youtube (part 1, part 2, and part 3.)

As for us, well you can find more of Jerzy's work at:
Make Like a Tree Comics
jdrozd.blogspot.com
Art & Story Podcast

Kevin is freelance illustrator, comic creator, and podcaster whose work can be found at:
Kevin Cross.net
Big Illustration Party Time Podcast
Ghettomation Podcast

...and well, you probably know me by now.

If you have any questions, comments, or heck, even complaints, you can drop us a line at Saturday Supercast!

Become a fan of the Saturday Supercast on Facebook!

Follow us on Twitter for show updates and more!

The Sugary Serials theme song was preformed by Umberto.

Subscribe Through iTunes
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Direct Download of the show here!

]]> Saturday Supercast Podcast Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:24:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=539831# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #27, Red & Handy! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513899#

Welcome to day 27 of my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, (is anyone even reading this first paragraph anymore?) and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster comes from episode 57, "Janine's Day Off", and is just downright weird, red and, well, handy. There are way too many hands on this guy. Between his finger goatee, the spider-like fangs coming out of his nose, his two bottom rat teeth, and the extra pair of hands coming out where his ears should be, it's just capitol F-reakyâ

This monster is actually made up of a bunch of little red gremlin-like devils that were besieging the firehouse while Janine was trying to teach a temp how to take care of the guys. Peter, in his infinite wisdom, decided to reverse the polarity on his proton pack and he blasted the creatures causing them to bind and morph together into huge handy here.

Yeah, I don't know what else I can say about this guy besides the fact that I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley without a proton pack strapped to my back!

Once again, if youâre enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters. If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513899# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #26, Terror Dog! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513775#

We're in the home stretch now on day 26. For all of those joining me for the first time, welcome to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today is my all time favorite of the Ghostbusters monsters, not to mention the second most iconic villain from the 1st movie, the Terror Dog. I love the librarian wraith in the first main sequence of the original film, as well as Vigo the Carpathian in the 2nd (he has one heck of an imposing stare), and I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, but the Terror Dogs have always been my favorites. When the artists and prop makers designed them they really hit the nail on the head in terms of an awesome, scary monsterâ

I also love this cel. Part of it is the action of the dog smashing through the log, flinging wooden shrapnel all over the place, and part of it is that the artist just nailed the look from the movie (well except for the other-worldy blue in the body color), simplifying it just enough to translate it into the cartoon. This is also an interesting piece for me because the guy who originally applied the paint to the log chose a color that was too bright and so they printed out a second copy of the line-work on another cel, re-painted the log and the bits of wood and then taped it over the original cel. This provided me with a peek into another example of the process, an almost paint-free cel that has the line-work photocopied onto itâ

Obviously I could guess what it would look like, but now I don't have to. Take that imagination! Seriously though, it's just a neat little addition to the collection.

I also managed to pick up another cel in the sequence of the Devil Dog's attack with a pratfall gag that leads into the jump aboveâ

This one also came with a "corrected" cel taped to the top. I decided not to scan it so that you could see the original color chosen for the log. Though the Terror Dogs are pretty a pretty darn important part of what makes up the look and feel of the Ghostbusters franchise, they weren't in the cartoon nearly as much as Stay Puft.

In fact they only make an appearance in two episodes, #73, "Egon's Ghost" (where is where these cels hail from), and #88, "Copycat". They are in the second version of the opening credits though...

Also, for any of you Real Ghostbusters fans out there that haven't picked up any of the new DVDs, I've decided to give away a copy of the Volume 1 Steelbook edition of the show! There are only five days left to enter, so get to the typing...

This 5-disc set contains the first 25 episodes of the series (including the 1st thirteen episode Saturday Morning run) as well as some fun special features. So what do you have to do to win this beauty? All you have to do is send me an e-mail (or click on the Creature From the Black Lagoon monster in the sidebar) and make sure to include the following:

-Please put "The Real Ghostbusters Contest" in the subject line.
-List your favorite monster/ghost/creature from the series.
-Include your name.

The deadline for entries is October 31st at Midnight eastern standard time. I'll be drawing a winner at random from the e-mails, and will respond to the winner via e-mail on November 1st. Also, if you feel inclined, I would love everyone to spread the word about the 31 Days of Monsters countdown and the contest, so hit up those social networks and tell a friend (my twitter handle is smurfwreck)!

If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513775# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #25, Famine! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513748#

Well, we're into the last week of the Halloween festivities here at Branded in the 80s; there are only seven entries left in my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown. As I've been reminding you all this past month, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster has a classic design, the ectoplasmic wraithâ

I really like the simplicity in this cel, so much so that I don't even miss any additional layers of shadow in the coloring, which is something I tend to prefer in well done cel animation. This is also, for all intents and purposes, what I expect to see if I ever encounter a ghost, and I can tell you right now that I'd poop myself twice if I do see something like this. I can only imagine the wailing moans that would come out of those decomposing lungs. I'd like to note that the cel above and the drawing below were both slightly damaged. There's a bit of a krinkled warp to the cel and the paper where the wraith is reaching out.

Though I like the simplicity of the one-color palette of this cel, I do sort of lament the nixing of suggestions made by the animator that penciled the original key pose belowâ

When the pencils were done I think it was the artist's intent to have the eyes and inside of the mouth around the tongue either different shades of green or in other colors (I'm guessing by those area being highlighted in colored pencil, something I've noticed in other cels and their accompanying drawings.) I think those additions would really have made this cel pop. Who knows, maybe the overall use of mint green was an error. Taking these cels out of context as individual pieces of art has it's drawbacks as they weren't intended to be viewed as such, but it's the most visceral connection I have to the cartoons I grew up loving, so that's what I'm going to doâ

Anyway, this is actually the spirit of Famine, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. He appears in episode #49, "Apocalypse - What, Now?" As you can see in the cel below he's riding a steed and is carrying a scale (as used during times of famine to measure out portions of bread.) Unfortunately he's not riding a black steed, but honestly I'm surprised that this sort of content made it to air on an 80s cartoon in general. I'd love to find some close-up cels of the other riders, War (I'm assuming the blue horseman in the middle), Pestilence (that yellow-orange guy on the right), and Death (following up the herd.)

In the episode, Peter inadvertently wins a mystical book at auction that contains the trapped spirits of the 4 Horsemen. While looking for some light reading during lunch, Janine unwittingly sets them free to wreck havoc on New York.

If you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters. If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ ]]> Halloween 2009 Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513748# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #24, Ghoulish Gloopy! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=515146#

This ugly mug hails from episode 27, "Doctor, Doctor", and is one of the weirder in the series. Basically, this is the more or less final form of a hybrid creature. While fighting a specter in a chemical plant, the Ghostbusters inadvertently create a new creature though they don't realize it at first. The "thing" is actually covering all of the guys up to the neck like a huge glop of red goo (reminding me a lot of the imagery in GBII.) The guys are admitted into the hospital and while there the goo on each of them starts morphing. One gets an eye, one a nose, one an ear, and one a mouth. Eventually the glop slides off of them and forms into a single creature, the disgusting monster you see above!

I find the idea of creatures like this that seem to be made from monster putty are kind of freaky because it would be really hard to dispatch them if the need arose. I mean how do you stop a hulking brute of a creature when you can punch right through them and it doesn't phase him in the least? You have to resort to trapping them at that point, luring them into a place where they can get zapped by a downed power line or tricked into falling into a vat of battery acid or something. When you can't just stop them with a shovel to the face then the whole thing becomes a heck of a lot more dauntingâ

As for the cel itself, I really like the little details; the bits of leftover hair, the gross bubble of goo in the right ear, and those gnarly teeth. Just plain ghoulish!

Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters. If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ ]]> Halloween 2009 Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=515146# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #23, Bony Slug! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513625#

There's just something unsettling and sickly about his slug-like body, the ultra creepy bone spikes for legs, and the puffiness around his fangs. I'd hate to see something like this crawling around in my garden.

This cel also marks the 2nd appearance (3rd if you count the preamble post last September 25th) of slimmer on the countdown, though the one on the Stay Puft cel was so tiny you could have missed him. I didn't really want to add a cel of slimmer as a stand alone monster since he's really an ally of the Ghostbusters in the cartoon, and honestly, it just seemed a bit obvious. But I couldn't keep him off the countdown altogether.

Actually, this really isn't Slimer, but a doppelganger from the containment unit limbo world. I didn't realize this until I recently watched this episode. I had noticed that there is kind of a weird aspect to this particular drawing of "Slimer". I didn't remember him every having claws in the cartoon. I know he has fingernails in the movie versions, but it's kind of weird to see him drawn like this in the cartoonâ

When I popped in this episode to get a screen capture for reference, I realized that this wasn't actually Slimer. So there, it doesn't even really count towards another Slimer on this list!

Contest Update! There are only 8 days left to enter to win a copy of the first volume of the Real Ghostbusters steelbook set!

This 5-disc set contains the first 25 episodes of the series (including the 1st thirteen episode Saturday Morning run) as well as some fun special features. So what do you have to do to win this beauty? All you have to do is send me an e-mail (or click on the Creature From the Black Lagoon monster in the sidebar) and make sure to include the following:

-Please put "The Real Ghostbusters Contest" in the subject line.
-List your favorite monster/ghost/creature from the series.
-Include your name.

The deadline for entries is October 31st at Midnight eastern standard time. I'll be drawing a winner at random from the e-mails, and will respond to the winner via e-mail on November 1st. Also, if you feel inclined, I would love everyone to spread the word about the 31 Days of Monsters countdown and the contest, so hit up those social networks and tell a friend (my twitter handle is smurfwreck)!

Also, if you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513625# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #22, Squid Alien! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513615#

Well, we're entering the top 10 of the creepiest monsters on this 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

It's day twenty two, and I have to say this is a crazy monster. I've got the feeling that this is an alien, what with all the tentacles and that dome-like shape to his noggin (I haven't had a chance to watch this episode yet if you can't already tellâ)

The aspect that really creeps me out is the sideways slit of the bottom portion on his mouth. It's sort of like the mouth on the Predator, only with more protruding teeth/fangs. Again, like back on day seven with the Devil, I'm really enjoying the use of aqua blue and orange. As opposite colors go they tend to remind of me of sports team logos, but I think it works well in this floating tentacled monstrosity. I also think it's a hoot that he's chucking bowling balls (I'm assuming) at the Ghostbusters. On top of all this is his general squid-ness, which I always respond to in monsters. Seems like a perfect time to show off the awesome commission my wife had Mark Rudolph draw for me this past summer...

]]> Halloween 2009 Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513615# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #21, The 1st demon, Hob Anagarak! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513613#

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! We're closing out the third week and it's really been a blast so far. For those of you who are just coming to this Halloween blogging event here at Branded in the 80s, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster is a favorite amongst fans of the Real Ghostbusters. Its name is Hob Anagarak and he hails from episode 52, "Cold Cash and Hot Water". According to Inuit legend, this beast is the 1st demon sent to watch over a pre-human fledgling Earth. Eventually he was magically frozen in an obelisk-esque block of lack ice and was lost in the frozen tundra of Alaska. Peter Venkman's father ends up finding him, and all Carl Denham-like (from King Kong), he brings the frozen monster to New York and then stupidly sets him free...

All I know for certain is that after taking a look at those massive claws, those glowing yellow eyes, and that incredibly long purple tongue jutting out of that mouth full of razor shard teeth and I was a bit frightened. Add to this the fiery red glare emanating off of him, and it just makes for a creepy image. I wish I could get a better look at this guy...

Even in the episode this guy ends up blending into the background, so these cels are probably some of the clearest images available of the demon. I found a slightly different view of this crazy beast. Just look at those tusk fangs! Sheesh. This guy is freaky.

This 5-disc set contains the first 25 episodes of the series (including the 1st thirteen episode Saturday Morning run) as well as some fun special features. So what do you have to do to win this beauty? All you have to do is send me an e-mail (or click on the Creature From the Black Lagoon monster in the sidebar) and make sure to include the following:

-Please put "The Real Ghostbusters Contest" in the subject line.
-List your favorite monster/ghost/creature from the series.
-Include your name.

The deadline for entries is October 31st at Midnight eastern standard time. I'll be drawing a winner at random from the e-mails, and will respond to the winner via e-mail on November 1st. Also, if you feel inclined, I would love everyone to spread the word about the 31 Days of Monsters countdown and the contest, so hit up those social networks and tell a friend (my twitter handle is smurfwreck)!

If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the orange banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513613# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #20, Dracula or a Man-Bat! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=515135#

It's beginning to feel a lot likeâDay 20âhere at my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

So, how do you follow up a really big purple and green spider monster? Why with something that would eat said spider monster as a snack, namely this freakishly creepy bat monster of course!

Whereas I have a huge phobia of spiders, I was never really all that bothered by bats. In my eyes they fall more into the cool section of the animal kingdom what with their natural use of sonar, their keen fashion sense (read, neat looking wings) and their hanging front one foot sleeping arrangements. I know a lot of folks get easily freaked out by bats, most likely because of the fear of rabies, but I think they get a bad rep most of the time. This guy here though, he might deserve itâ

As far as bat monsters go, I'm really fond of the whole man-bat sort of creatures, particularly with examples like the Man-Bat on the Batman: the Animated Series and the scenes with Gary Oldman as the monster bat in Coppola's version of Dracula. There's also a great, though quick, shot of Dracula as a man-bat in the Monster Squad that I've always loved. There is a bit of an identification dilemma with this guy though. In this episode of the Real Ghostbusters (epi. 91, "Translyvanian Homesick Blues") there is a character, a vampire, named Count Volstock who morphs into a creature like this. But there are also holographic (but none the less scary) man-bats that are huge and take this form as well...

I couldn't find either of these exact cels, so I'm not sure if this is Volstock or the man-bats. Also, I would have loved it of I'd managed to find a cel where the eyes of the bat were translucent red (for the neat backlit effect in the screencap above.) Maybe one day. Also, I really dug that the character designers worked a little bit of Christopher Lee into old Volstock. Just a nice touch...

If you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters. If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=515135# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #19, Eww, just ew... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513391#

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! I can't believe itâs already day 19. Well, as I've been saying, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

So what's more frightening than a 8 legged brown hairy spider crawling on the wall next to you while you watch TV? How about a half ton purple and green spider with 10 appendages (two of which end in tiny pinching crab claws)â

I hate spiders. I mean I REALLY hate spiders. Hates them so. I think the day I run across a brown recluse I'm going to stroke out on the spot. To make matters worse, we've been getting these super creepy red spiders in the apartment lately that have slick hard bodies (my wife loved me enough to describe the crunching sound it makes when you kill one with a tissue), and honestly that was one of my worst nightmares. Red spiders means that I'll almost always be able to pick them out when they're slinking around as we have beige carpeting and white walls. At least some of the lighter brown ones blend in. Out of sight, out of mind you know. Anyway, I always hate having to sit through giant spider scenes in flicks like Return of the King or the Mist. Arachnophobia and Kingdom of the Spiders, for some reason, I can handle.

Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters. If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ ]]> Halloween 2009 Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513391# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #18, Inside-out Rat thing! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513380#

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! We're up to Day 18. In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today we've got an ugly little bugger. It's looks like a rat that was turned inside out. I guess I'll call him Pinky.

When I received this one in the mail I was surprised to find that it was a heavily corrected cel. So much so that there was a copy of the original line work on a second layer that was colored correctly. It took a bit of work to separate the two layers as the pink paint on the back of the top layer had adhered to the layer beneath, but after I worked them apart I was treated to an alternate color scheme. The much more muted and realistic red-brown is kind of creepy. I wonder if that was the reason it was changed to a day-glo pink, or if it was just a mistakeâ

This guy hails from episode #50, "Lost & Foundry". He was spooking up a metal processing plant and he ends up having his ions dispersed into a batch of molten metal. Of course he ends up getting processed into items that end up in the Ghostbuster's firehouse and he eventually forms into a gigantic metal specter/creature. In the episode he moves pretty quickly so there aren't a lot of great shots where you really get a chance to see him in detail, which is another nice aspect of collecting cels like this.

Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters. If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ ]]> Halloween 2009 Sun, 18 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513380# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #17, Just a Thug (a Mutant Thug)! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513366#

Well, it's day 13 of my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown and I haven't been slowing down at all (which is nice considering how grueling this posting schedule was in years past.) Like I've mentioned about two hundred thousand times so far, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster is pretty straight forward, the Mutant Ghost Thug. Complete with tipped forward bowler, wife-beater shirt, and hitched up waders, this guy looks like he could knock your head off just as soon as look at you (with all four of his beady yellow eyesâ)

In the episode, #104 "Partners in Slime", this guy is an example of the muscle utilized by a mob boss ghost named Poso. What kind of struck me while watching it was how off the mark the series was starting to get around this time. At this point ghosts are trying to take down the Ghostbusters left and right, and there's no rhyme or reason to the styling of the characters. Why a mob boss? Why not I guess, as it doesn't do anything for the story. Also, when I first saw this cel, I expected the voice to come out of this guy would be really imposing. In reality he ended up in the very whiney annoying kind of range. I still love his design though...

He's just a pretty imposing yet simple figure. The one aspect that I really dig is the pencil under-drawing, which is just rendered so well. I'm not sure if this was a favorite of the animator, or if he was just in the zone that day, but the line work looks so fluid and perfect. It doesn't feel rushed like so many of these drawings tend to (knowing the time crunch these studios were under to turn around 65 hand-drawn and painted episodes in under a year.) This is one I'm going to consider framing when I get the time.

Also, for any of you Real Ghostbusters fans out there that haven't picked up any of the new DVDs, I've decided to give away a copy of the Volume 1 Steelbook edition of the show!

This 5-disc set contains the first 25 episodes of the series (including the 1st thirteen episode Saturday Morning run) as well as some fun special features. So what do you have to do to win this beauty? All you have to do is send me an e-mail (or click on the Creature From the Black Lagoon monster in the sidebar) and make sure to include the following:

-Please put "The Real Ghostbusters Contest" in the subject line.
-List your favorite monster/ghost/creature from the series.
-Include your name.

The deadline for entries is October 31st at Midnight eastern standard time. I'll be drawing a winner at random from the e-mails, and will respond to the winner via e-mail on November 1st. Also, if you feel inclined, I would love everyone to spread the word about the 31 Days of Monsters countdown and the contest, so hit up those social networks and tell a friend (my twitter handle is smurfwreck)!

Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters. If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513366# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #16, Mr. Sandman, leave my dreams be! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513347#

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown, day 16! In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster is one of the more infamous in the Real Ghostbusters cannon, the Sandmanâ

For me, it's not the visuals that make this character so frightening; it's a mixture of his power (being able to put you to sleep and making your nightmares a walking reality for others) and his super eerie voice. Click here, or on his ugly mug below to hear him go on a diatribeâ

The idea that my unconscious fears would both be revealed to others while I slept, and find their way into reality is just bone chilling to me. We all have our secret secrets, and there's a reason we keep them hidden so deep that only your subconscious dwells on them. That's one of the things I hate about nightmares, it's not confronting these demons as much as this weird feeling that while I'm fighting them in my sleep others can see them. If my friends and family worm their way into m dreams it's like they're really there and when I wake those people will have a memory of my dream. It's like a shared experience, at least for me in my own head and it makes it hard to look some of these people in the eye afterward. The Sandman has domain over this realm and the idea that he could pry open your mind and makes this dark stuff slither out is just plain scary.

Luckily for me this is only a cartoon. It's only a cartoon, It's only a cartoonâ

Make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s. Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513347# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: A Halfway Countdown Recap and a Contest! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=514997#

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! This is just a quick post to recap the first half of this year's countdown (including the #0 cel I posted towards the end of September.) I can't wait to get to the next 16 monsters!

Also, for any of you Real Ghostbusters fans out there that haven't picked up any of the new DVDs, I've decided to give away a copy of the Volume 1 Steelbook edition of the show!

This 5-disc set contains the first 25 episodes of the series (including the 1st thirteen episode Saturday Morning run) as well as some fun special features. So what do you have to do to win this beauty? All you have to do is send me an e-mail (or click on the Creature From the Black Lagoon monster in the sidebar) and make sure to include the following:

-Please put "The Real Ghostbusters Contest" in the subject line.
-List your favorite monster/ghost/creature from the series.
-Include your name.

The deadline for entries is October 31st at Midnight eastern standard time. I'll be drawing a winner at random from the e-mails, and will respond to the winner via e-mail on November 1st. Also, if you feel inclined, I would love everyone to spread the word about the 31 Days of Monsters countdown and the contest, so hit up those social networks and tell a friend (my twitter handle is smurfwreck)!

If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event!

]]> Halloween 2009 Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:00:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=514997# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #15, Minotaur! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=535989#

We're all the way up to the halfway point of the 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster is a Minotaur/animal Spirit from episode #80, "It's a Jungle Out There". This guy ends up making a bunch of animals throughout New York super intelligentâ

Minotaurs are already sort of imposing and scary, but this guy takes the cake in that department. Just look at all those extra tusks & horns (not to mention that sharp set of choppers he's sporting!) What's kind of weird is that while watching the episode I was really getting freaked out by the clopping of his hooves. Don't know why exactly, but it just got to me.

I think to offset the creepy factor of this monster, the writers decided to add a bit of levity in the episode by introducing Egon's patented rocket roller skates.

Also, to get a flavor of what some of the super intelligent animal imagery was like, check out these cels (from last year's countdown.) I had assumed that the ape, deer, and hippo were standing in front of the fall out from an explosion, but it turns out it was just the exhaust from the Ecto-1's tail pipe.

]]> Halloween 2009 Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=535989# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #14, Moss Monster! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513264#

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

It's day 14 of the countdown, and we're getting pretty close to the halfway mark. Whew. Today's Moss Monster digs into that dark recess of fear in my psyche with his multiple sets of arms. To be honest, most of my fears stem from slightly odd irrational places. Sure I have a fear of spiders, an intense one, and it because of all the classic reasons be it the fear of being bitten, crawled on, the sticky clinging webs, their little hairy bodies, the quickness with which they scuttle about, etc. But the overarching issue is with the multiple legs. The idea of multiple appendages just really creeps me the hell out. There are some exceptions; ants for instance don't do much except make me mad. Well, with Moss Man here, it's leaning towards the uncomfortable nature of multiple limbsâ

It doesn't help his case that his mouth looks so drippy, and that he has some weirdly spaced teeth. This guy is also a great example of where/when the character designs on the ghosts and the tone of the stories started diverging in the series. The episode that features ol' Moss Man here is #113b, "Slimer's Streak", and it has a pretty silly premise involving a weird train conductor ghost that puts the Ghostbusters in a game world.

This guy, as weird and frightening as he appears (to me at least) is basically a ghost dedicated to the game of tag. You know, Ghosts in the Graveyard, "Tag you're it!" With a goofy high-pitched, child-like voice and his playful demeanor he comes off very harmless. The eyes should have been a tip off to his more cartoon-y nature, but that mouth and his many limbs still freak me out...

If you're enjoying these monsters and ghosts, then come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s. Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513264# Shawn Michael Robare No Paying tribute to a gentle monster... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=536967#

I just wanted to take a second and help spread the word about another interesting blogging event coming up next month. In honor of the amazing Boris Karloff, Pierre Fournier of the wonderful Frankenstenia is putting together a week-long discussion of the master thespian and all around gentle monster. I'll let Pierre explain in his own wordsâ

"Beginning on November 23 â Karloff's 122nd birthday â and on through the 29th, bloggers far and wide are invited to post something about Boris, his life and his wide-ranging career.

There is much to exploreâ His film work spanned five decades. He clocked some 75 films through the silent era before he landed and nailed the iconic part of The Monster in Frankenstein, a film that is almost 80 years old and still seen and admired. The sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein, is a motion picture classic. In his path through the history of horror films, Karloff collaborated with James Whale, Val Lewton, Mario Bava and Roger Corman. He proved equally at ease in all genres, including comedies.

Away from films, Boris Karloff became a Broadway star with Arsenic and Old Lace, The Lark and he was Captain Hook in Peter Pan.

He enjoyed a successful radio career and he was one of the first Hollywood actors to embrace television, appearing in live drama, in his own series â notably Colonel March of Scotland Yard and Thriller â and as a frequent and popular guest on talk and variety shows. He was the model and the Grammy Award-winning voice of The Grinch. He made numerous spoken word records, reading fairy tales to children and, in print, he lent his name to horror and mystery anthologies and a line of comic books.

In real life, Boris Karloff was a gentleman, a cricket fan and a brave founding member of the Screen Actor's Guild.

It's been forty years since Boris Karloff passed away, yet his star shines as bright as ever. This November 23, bloggers will come together and share film reviews, profiles, images, thoughts and remembrances and, I am sure, surprises. I, as a reader, am looking forward to it."

I plan on participating in this event. It'll help to wean myself off of all of this Halloween blogging, and honestly, I'm always eager to talk about Mr. Karloff. For more information head on over to Frankensteinia, which is also always a treat. ]]> general Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:28:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=536967# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #13, Sewer Rats Redux! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513257#

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's set of sewer rat monsters is sort of a repeat from last year's countdown. These were actually the cels that got me excited enough to try and compile a whole month's worth of Real Ghostbusters monsters for this years countdown, so I figured they deserved to be on the list. Also, I didn't have a whole lot to say last yearâ

Looking back at these, I have to wonder if huge sharp teeth were the writer/character designer's ace in the hole in terms of bringing really creepy imagery into the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. In preparation for this month's countdown I watched a bunch of episodes and quickly scanned through the rest to try and get an overview of what the various monsters, ghosts, and creepazoids looked like as I hadn't sat down and watched this show in years.

The more I watched the more I realized that even though there are a lot of scary aspects to the show, a lot of the imagery was more on the tame side of things. I mean it is a cartoon aimed at kids after all, but there are some interesting ghostly concepts that were in the movies that didnât make it into the show. Take for instance the initial library ghost. Whereas her spectral visage was pretty intimidating in and of itself, her transformation into a wailing banshee with sunken eyes and whipping hair was terrifying for the few seconds it appeared on screen. This sort of thing probably didn't work for the network censors.

But time and again, while scanning through the episodes, I kept noticing that on the creatures that the writers really wanted to come across as terrifying there would almost always be a mouthful of gnarly sharp teeth. I mean, I'm assuming that as long as these teeth weren't used to actually visually render a background character limb from limb, then it was probably kosher to stick them on a creature. Teeth in an of themselves aren't really weapons per-se, we've all got 'em (to one extent or another.) Anyway, these overgrown subway/sewer rats use this idea in spadesâ

Here's a bit I wrote last year about the pencilsâ

"As for interesting aspects to this first cel, I really dig the pencil under drawing that I scored with it. I'm not sure if the under drawing is hinting at the next drawing (which I suspect), or referencing the previous drawing and cel, but I love the alternate view of the creatures with their sharp-toothed mouths all agape. The creatures sure seem a heck of a lot more fierce that way to boot."

Again, I love getting a glimpse into the process like this.

Hope you're all enjoying these monsters, I know I'm enjoying posting about them. If you do, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s. Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event. If you're so inclined, you can also dig into my Halloween Blogging archives and read through the last few All Hallows Eve seasons... ]]> Halloween 2009 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513257# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #12, Road Warrior Troll! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513202#

Besides the fact that this is one of the episodes that I remember watching back in the 80s, it's also one of the few cels that I've managed to pick up that feature the Ecto-1â

As for the King Troll, I really dig the character design. He's imposing and weirdly satyr-like with his legs resembling a goat'sâ

Also, the writers/design artists on the series took inspiration for a weird source when it came to the trolls in this episode. They drew from Road Warrior imagery, a sort of rag-tag group that's scrounged pots and pans as armor and they've constructed vehicles that look a lot like the stuff in that George Miller film. You can see the design of the two main villains from Road Warrior in the King Troll as wellâ

Make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s. Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513202# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #11, Mummy Zombie! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513184#

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! It's day eleven and in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster, like Moriarty yesterday, sort of has that Scooby Doo-esque vibe to him. This Pharaoh Zombie character design is pretty cool, especially in a Stargate sort of wayâ

The design reminds me a whole heck of a lot of a pair of Vans shoes I saw recently that featured the Iron Maiden mascot Eddie re-imagined as a pharaoh/Sphinx godâ

This monster hails from episode 69, "The Long Long Log Etc. Goodbye", and is actually the final form of a possessed (by King Todd) thief named Blackie who morphs into this ancient Egyptian mummy monster. I only got a chance to skim the episode, but if nothing else, picking up these monster cels has really lit a fire under me to go back and watch through the entire Real Ghostbusters series. There really were a lot of cool concepts being thrown around on the show...

]]> Halloween 2009 Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513184# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #10, The game is a(severed)foot! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513179#

Welcome to day 10 of my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster comes from one of my favorite episodes of the Real Ghostbusters, "Elementary My Dear Watson". It features the odd appearance of Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson, as well as their evil arch enemy Moriarty (as well as his creepy hound.) These characters are exactly ghosts, but physical manifestations based on the energy of a million of people's collective subconsciouses. The episode has a very Time After Time vibe to it (even though in that flick it's H.G. Wells in the Holmes role, and Jack the Ripper as Moriarty) I came across a couple of Moriarty cels, the first of which is a bit unrecognizable.

Of all monster imagery I tend to respond to three general archetypes, the lumbering Frankenstein's monster, the various incarnations of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the utter simplicity of the reanimated skeleton. I love the skeleton fights in the Harryhausen flicks, the cheap scare in the House on Haunted Hill, and the weird obsessive nature of the titular antique in the Peter Cushing Amicus vehicle the Skull. The human skull in general has reached a point of iconography so common that it's almost losing meaning as a form of shorthand. Also, much like the nude form, it's always more potent when loosely draped with something, be it sinew or muscle tissue, or in the least defined eyes instead of deep black pools of nothing. This skeleton is the initial incarnation of the evil Moriarty, and though it's not his final form, with its eerie halo of noxious ectoplasm, it makes for a very striking image. It's also the beginning of a very similar (thought vastly truncated) "coming together" sequence as seen in the first two Hellraiser films.

This is my first exposure to a cel that has any for of airbrushing instead of flat painting. For some reason the airbrushed paint didn't fare so well over time. The separate layer with the green was basically flaking off the cel. The paint is almost a fine powder that was being held in place by the skeleton cel on top of itâ

Anyway, on to a more defined look for the master criminal. Whereas the trio of monster/ghosts yesterday seemed to be of the Muppet variety, the character design on Moriarty and his Hound (of the Baskervilles persuasion I'm assuming) seem more in line with something you'd see on an episode of Scooby Doo...

There's something about a pale-skinned gaunt guy in a riding coat and top hat that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. I think it's because I equate this getup with the character design of the hitchhikers in Disney's Haunted Mansion ride, which was one of the attractions that my parents tended to avoid whenever we'd hit up Disney World (my parents were creatures of habit and would avoid stuff like Splash Mountain, Tom Sawyer Island, and the Toontown Fair every tripâ) I think because I visited it the least, by the time I first rode the Haunted Mansion it pretty much blew my mind. Mixed with my love of Halloween and all things horror, it's probably my favorite ride at Disney, though I do so lament the long closed 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea...

There are still 21 monsters left to showcase, so make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s. Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513179# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #9, A trio of cartoon-y monsters! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513172#

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

For day nine of the countdown I've got another trio of monster/ghosts that illustrates the level of cartoon-y-ness this series reaches. On the one hand there are a lot of very freaky monster designs (coming later this month), yet on the other it's not strange to find a group like this one that feels a little more at home with the Muppets than in the netherworldâ

Of course even with these three the spectrum of creepiness is sort of represented. While the big light purple guy up front looks like a mutant Kermit, the red on the right is pretty weird. Just look at those weird tube worm-looking deals on his head. Are those eyes at the end of those? Ew.

Personally, my favorite of the three is the unassuming light blue guy in the background. Turns out this was a series of cels, and you can get a bit of a clearer idea of what he looks like by removing the cel with the purple monster in the front. Unfortunately he's still obscured a bit by the red guy as they're on the same cel, but you get the basic gist of his design. I like his way-too-thin skeletal hips, and his humpbacked stanceâ

These guys hail from one of the later series episodes, #100, Something's Going Round to be more precise. The red eye-tentacle/worm guy is Dr. McCatheter, a devious ghost who masqueraded as a health expert doctor trying to convince the Ghostbusters that they're allergic to ghosts.

Though it's kind of fun watching the guys morph into all sorts of old shapes and colors (even plaid), it definitely falls on the more cartoon-y side of the scale in terms of the tone of the series. The story isn't very tight and it ends up feeling a lot like your basic 80s cartoons.

]]> Halloween 2009 Fri, 9 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513172# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #8, Spengler Monster! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513165#

Welcome to the second week of my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Opening up this 2nd week (as far as the count of days goes) is one of the Ghostbusters themselves, Egon Spengler. This cel is from episode 45, "Egon on the Rampage". Basically, Egon gets possessed by a demon from another dimension and hulks out going on a, a, well, rampage like the title suggests, scooping up damsels in distress and the likeâ

I thought this cel was kind of interesting because of the mixture of character homages mixed into the design. There's a little bit of the Hulk in there, with the increased size and tattered jumpsuit still clinging to him (not to mention the unnatural coloring), but there's also a little bit of the Wolfman to that design too with his hairy forearms and fangs. On top of this Egon's already bouffant hair is taken to a drastic height that borders on a Bride of Frankenstein level.

Also, in some of the other cels from this same episode I noticed he sort of has a King Kong aspect to him, the unruly beast that really does have a heart of gold and just want to be left aloneâ

Again, there are what I'm pretty sure are Japanese Katakana kana notating where the artwork needs to remain clear. Not sure of the translation just yet, but the syllable translations of the kana to English are "chi" (the kana that looks like a fancy seven) and "ki" (the kana that looks like a "t" with a double cross.) This whole process is like the reverse of a typical illustrative shorthand when inking line art where the artist makes "x" tic marks in areas that need to be filling in with solid blacks.

Again, I hope everyone has been digging this countdown, and if so make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s. Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event. I know I've been enjoying the heck out of what others are putting together this yearâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Thu, 8 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513165# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #7, the Devil! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513118#

Actually, it's not exactly the Devil per-se, but a dybbuk. According to the show (he appears in episode 71, The Devil to Pay), a dybbuk is just a minor demon, but according to Jewish folklore it's a demon denied access to Gehenna for committing a serious transgression in life that spends the after life maliciously possessing humans.

The character on the show is named Dyb Devlin the host of a hot (couldn't resist the pun) new game show called Race the Devil. He figures he can get a promotion (according to the episode's writer Dennys J. McCoy in the special features on the DVD) to a highler level by taking the Ghostbuster's souls, but I'm betting the initial idea was that he was just trying to gain access to Hell. At the same time I think the writers also wanted this to be the one and only Devil as this episode fits the Devil's archetypical "purchasing your soul" story structure. This is the kind of concept and brave writing (for a children's show) that I think makes the Real Ghostbusters series stand apart from a lot of other 80s cartoons (though we did see something very similar in the Wizard of Stone Mountain episode of He-Man.)

Is it weird that I was super excited about the color of today's monster/deity? When putting the list together one of the thoughts in the back of my mind was color, and trying to make sure that I represented the spectrum with these creatures and ghosts. So we've got that orange thing covered. I'll be honest though, I'm not all that excited about the coat matching the face in terms of color scheme, but what-are-ya-gonna-do? I am digging the blue hair thoughâ

As far as the imagery goes, call him Satan, ol' Scratch, Beelzebub, the Source of All Evil, Lucifer, Baphomet, Belial, Mephistopheles, Randall Flagg, Apollyon Satan, Clute, Diablo, Ol' Gooseberry, or that drunk guy my mom married when I was six, the Devil is pretty much the end all be all of bad guys (well, except for maybe the Nothing from the Neverending Story.) He's kind of low on the list because of all his various incarnations (visually), this is one of the tamer versions. My personal favorite on the way creepy meter is from the Christopher Lee-starring Hammer flick the Devil Rides Out, where he appears momentarily on a stump with the full on goats head and all. C-R-E-E-P-Y, creepy.

I'm just warming up, so make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s. If you're interested in reading up on some of the Halloween seasons past, you can check out my All Hallows Eve archive. Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Wed, 7 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513118# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #6, Tenctonese+Bart Simpson+Spongebob+a Block of Cheddar=Creepy! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513107#

Welcome to day six of my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! All through October I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster is, well, to be honest, I'm not sure what he is. For the most part the episodes that I remember from the show are those first which aired on Saturday morning during the fall of 1986. I do remember watching the show for years beyond, but with my insane cartoon watching schedule I think I missed out on a lot of episodes. I'm dying to relive the entire series but my copy of the complete series just came this past Thursday and I haven't had a chance to get to this one yet. I want to say he's the son in a family of monsters (aliens?) that seek out the Ghostbusters for help, but I'm not positive...

Anyway, this guy is one heck of a cheddar head, who's one part Spongebob Squarepants, one part Timer (from those crazy PSAs during the 80s), one part Bart Simpson, and one part freaky Alien Nation-esque Newcomer (Tenctonese for the detail oriented researchers out there) weirdoâ

I saw what I believe were a couple of other cels that I think are from the same episode that feature a much more sinister female version of this guy and another odd yellow fiend that looked a lot like Homer Simpson mated with a banana. Like I said, it's certainly got me burning to watch through the series again. Unfortunately this cel didn't have an accompanying pencil under-drawing, so this is a solo in the picture department today. Aside from this poor sap's unfortunate head, what really drew me to it was his very disturbing, skull-like teeth. Creepy!

Hope you're all enjoying these monsters, I know I'm enjoying posting about them. If you do, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s. Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event. If you're so inclined, you can also dig into my Halloween Blogging archives and read through the last few All Hallows Eve seasons...

]]> Halloween 2009 Tue, 6 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513107# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #5, Some of the ghosts that kicked off the animated series! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513073#

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's trio of ghosts are some of my favorite, not necessarily for their design or concept, but because they're the protagonists in the very first episode (2nd produced) of the Real Ghostbusters, "Ghosts R Us", that aired in the initial Saturday morning run of the show during the fall of 1986. This family of ghosts is based on a familial conceit that probably dates back to the Stone Age, though for me it recalls the Looney Tunes shorts with the three bears and Bugs Bunny playing the part of Goldilocks. You've got the seriously hot-headed father, the slightly distant mother, and the doofus overgrown babyâ

If I remember correctly, these three want to put the Ghostbusters out of business by opening up a rival outfit that both causes disturbances and is always on the scene first to stop it. Though I'm not a huge fan of the visual character design, I do kind of dig the faux-50s costuming, in particular the soda jerk getup the father is wearing. It's a weird but nice touch, and it's yet another example of the 50s era nostalgia that was wildly rampant all throughout the late 70s to the end of the 80s.

Below are some screen-shots from the episode in question. The first (on the left) is what these ghosts looked like in their normal ghastly form, and then on the right is the Ghosts R Us makeovers. Also, that second screen-shot features my actual cel/frame of animation which is pretty neat. Now you can put the cel in the context of the overall scene...

To add to the whole 50s theme, this episode also opens with a loose homage to the I Love Lucy Show where she gets a job in a chocolate factory. When the GBs arrive at a call it's at a chocolate factory where all the employees look a bit like Lucy, and there's a gag where the ghosts are making the machines spit out chocolate pieces like a torrential rain.

If you've been enjoying these ghosts and monster animation cels, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s. Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event. Tell 'em Branded in the 80s sent ya!

]]> Halloween 2009 Mon, 5 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513073# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #4, Zombie Pirates are 50% nerd gold! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513067#

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown! I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster evokes one-fourth of the nerd hierarchy of the most important creatures/beings on the planet, the pirate (rounded out by monkeys, ninjas, and zombies.) Actually he's also a skeletal, un-dead, zombie-pirate to boot. Considering I posted a very monkey-like Yeti yesterday, I'm well on my way in working in three-fourths of the nerd-approved gold standard into this countdown. Now, if I could only find a ninja monster/ghost I'd be setâ

When I picked this one up there were a few zombie pirate themed cels to choose from, but there was something about this little guy that really jumped out at me. Though I love his fiendish throttling of the parrot, but I also dig the slightly sardonic smirk that's creeping into his expression. I always dig it when animators find ways to make a skeleton's grin malleable enough to show some emotion, something the Filmation artists did with expert glee when drawing Skeletor for the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon. This is another example, which is skewed just enough to show how much this guy loves choking that bird, but not so much as to make the jaw bone lose it's rigid definition.

This is the skeleton of Captain Jack Higgins, the leader of the scurvy crew of zombie pirates in episode #17, Sea Fright, which made it's debut in 1986. As you can see from the screen capture below, my cel is missing a couple layers of proton pack blasting energy, as well as the background, but those are both a little tough to come by. Capt. Jack is a millisecond away from being sucked into a ghost trap, and wants to make sure his parrot comes with. If nothing else, the above cel is the clearest depiction of this scene because it's unobstructed...

Also, in the pencil under-drawing below there is a bit of a childhood fascination of mine with the Asian text crammed into the empty spaces between the parrot and Capt. Jack annotating where no color is needed and the cel needs to remain transparent. There's a weird regressive wonder at work in my brain when I see other languages in print, particularly the non-romance/Latin based languages like Sanskrit, Cyrillic, or the various Asian characters. I realize that highlights my un-traveled, slightly isolationist (if only because these written languages take on an almost runic quality to me) attitude towards other cultures, but it's a fascination I can't help but wear on my sleeveâ

Anyway, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s. Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event. See you guys tomorrowâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Sun, 4 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513067# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #3, Bigfoot that looks more like a Yeti! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513059#

When I picked up this cel I hadn't seen the episode that this big guy came from. I've since rectified that (my complete Real Ghostbusters set came in the mail on the 1st), and it turns out that this is in fact a Bigfoot, though from another dimension. I still think he looks more like a Yeti, so I'm sticking to that.

I'm partial to the more simian designs of this east-Asian crypto-zoological marvel, though I do like the various carvings and masks I've seen (particularly the demonic looking ones that decorate the Expedition Everest ride at Disney's Animal Kingdom.) Also, as I found out last Halloween, I love their one big on-screen monster movie success, the Peter Cushing Hammer classic the Abominable Snowman.

This monster debuted in episode #89, Camping it Up, where the gang goes on a camping trip only to stumble across some trouble. This bigfoot somehow managed to find a portal from his alien home-world dimension to Earth via a section of limbo. The gang has to weather through a night with this monster before helping him get back home.

As for this cel, it's one of my favorites because the image is both detailed and it takes up so much of the cel's surface area. I've mentioned before that one of the pitfalls of collecting animation cels is that so many of what you find is visually kind of deficient. Like the episode of the Simpson's where Bart wants the Itchy and Scratchy cel that just has an arm in frame, typically cels, even the ones with full character illustrations on them can seem kind of anticlimactic. This stems from the design of traditional hand-drawn animation process and the multiple layers used to get both depth, and ease of movement. It's always more stunning when you can find a piece that has a background sheet included, or in the case of the Yeti above, when it take up enough space that it basically looks like a scene right out of the cartoon.

Part of the detail that I love in this piece is the slobber coming off of the big guy's mouth and teeth. It's another example of the process of visual design that is more or less unique to cel animation and painting in general, the concept of using color to outline and suggest shape. You're starting to see this concept used widely in illustration these days, as artists are moving away from traditional pen and ink towards a more digital process or at least digitally coloring (replacing parts of the black line work with colored lines to either give the perception of depth of field or just as a stylistic choice.) It's cool how with just some light blue paint used in outline and not filled in gives the shorthand impression of drool.

As far as the pencil under-drawing goes, I liked that the animator marked off the live are of the cel to concentrate on. I also like the annotations on keeping the color separate on the tongue and gums, and the red ink needed for the veins in the eyesâ

Make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s. Also, you can head on over to Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Sat, 3 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513059# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #2, Sp-Ham-Man! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513051#

So about that disagreement. I have a weirdly obsessive fear/fascination with anthropomorphized food, which I've written about in detail before. There's something completely unholy about food walking around, talking, dancing and looking up at you with puppy dog eyes (or in the case of Spammy above, utter contempt.) I know a lot of my fear stems back to the scene in Young Sherlock Holmes with the cute little puff pastries seemingly coming to life and stuffing themselves down Watson's gullet, but I also have to wonder how much of it derives from the all but complete anonymity of how our meats are provided cut, cleaned, and prepackaged in our grocer's meat case. If I was forced to kill animals for my own meat consumption, I can pretty much guarantee that I've become a vegan in record time. Just visiting a working dairy farm was enough to turn my wife off of meat and dairy for a year. So my fear of food having sentience, eyes, or a mouth that could bite me back reminds me that a lot of the stuff I put in my body was living at one point. If it were just up to me, Spam Man here would fall way far down on the "poop-in-my-pants" section of the creep-o-meter.

This guy comes from episode 109.B, Kitty-Cornered. Slimer happens upon a witch's lost cat that has the power to grant wishes. He inadvertently brings all the food in the firehouse kitchen to life, which then break free of the fridge and terrorize Luis Tully (the Ghostbuster's Accountant/friend.) Seriously, look at that anthropomorhic foodstuff. It's haunting my waking thoughts, in particualr that ketchup riding the ear of corn. HAUNTING I say.

Anyway, back to the actual cel at hand. Again, when I picked up this beauty it came complete with a pencil under-drawing, and like yesterday's Stay Puft, the drawing was slightly different than the finished cel which is kind of rare since the pencils are usually kept with the finished cel to act both as a protective layer between it and the other painted cels, and as possible reference later if there is an error. What's kind of cool about this though is that the pencil drawing provides a slightly different variation on the figure with his mouth closed and the annotation showing the movement that the character is going to be doing (in this case tapping his foot.) These little bits of behind the scenes stuff fascinate me endlessly (about as much as Iâm horrified by the idea of a walking talking hunk of ham!)

Make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s. Also, you can head on over to Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Fri, 2 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513051# Shawn Michael Robare No 31 Days of Monsters: #1, The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513049#

Alright, welcome to the first official post of the Halloween season here at Branded in the 80s. This Countdown to Halloween is sort of becoming a tradition around the internet blogging community, and I'm happy to be participating for my fourth straight year. As I mentioned in a previous post, I've decided on a theme this year in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise. Since I love cartoons, in particular the Real Ghostbusters, and I've been actively collecting 80s era animation cels for the past couple of years I thought it would be fun to showcase some of the monsters and ghosts that appeared in the series. All this month I'll be counting down through 31 of my favorites culled from my personal collection of cels and animation under-drawings.

Again, as I mentioned previously, my wife and I sat down and did our best to order these monsters and ghosts from the least scary to the "crap-my-pants-creepy". Today's entry is as cute as a 40 foot-tall button, and is "..something that could never possibly destroy usâ" Of course, I couldn't kick this countdown off without talking about one of the most iconic of all creatures that have popped up over the years of the franchise, the one and only Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!

Whether he's the physical form of Gozer the Gozerian (the Sumerian god of destruction) innocently chosen by Ray Stantz (Dan Akroyd) in the first film, or the eventual three-story tall baby-like sidekick of the animated GB crew, Stay Puft is as synonymous with the Ghostbusters as Slimer. Stay Puft's concept origin comes from a mixture of advertising giants, the Michelin Man and the Pillsbury Doughboy. The eventual design was so convincing to me that for years I assumed there was a brand of marshmallows called Stay Puft.

His appearances in the cartoon are a great example of how weirdly twisted spin-off adaptations can become. In fact, the Real Ghostbusters is the center of a lot of weird adaptation issues. Adding Slimer as somewhat of a pet/mascot, making Egon blonde, and turning Janine into a new wave punker are just a few examples of where the cartoon differs from the original flick. What's interesting is that some of these changes worm their way into the second film. I'm surprised we didn't see a return of the Marshmallow Man in GBII instead of the happy-tized-goo-animated Statue of Liberty.

In the cel above we have Stay Puft strolling along the streets of NY, using what's probably the corner of the GB firehouse headquarters as a turning point pivot. There's also a little Slimer hovering over Puft's right shoulder, no doubt trying to convince him to help the Ghostbusters take down a big baddy. I was kind of happy when I received this cel in the mail as it came with a pencil under-drawing from a slightly different segment. It's also kind of neat to see how the animator illustrated where the shadows were to be applied to the eventual painted cel.

I'm not sure how many of you GB fans out there love or hate Slimer (I'm guessing it's pretty close to 50/50), but this tiny version (as well as his E.T.-esque appearance in the cel from last week) is pretty much all the Slimer we're going to get on this countdown. There might be one more, but I'm really trying to concentrate on the other creatures, monsters, and ghosts from the series.

Make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s. Also, you can head on over to Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging eventâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Thu, 1 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=513049# Shawn Michael Robare No They look awesome, but they taste like 1950s science... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=531714# the Insidious Bogleach who indirectly urged me not to give up hope on pharmacy Halloween sections. I really haven't found anything good at Walgreens, CVS, or Rite Aid in years, but that has turned around a bit. From Flix Candy, the same makers of the Box of Boogers, Zit Poppers, Bed Bugs, Freaky Fingers, and the Spooky Lip Pops comes the insanely awesome series of Monster Gummys!

These things are huge, and the concept is just fan-freaking-tastic. Personally, with my goofy love of cephalopods, I think the gummy tentacle is probably the best designed confection known to mankind. The choice of color, the little sugarcoated crunchies inside the suckers, it's just a brilliant work of art. And the gummy earthworm? Well that is just the perfect grotesque extension of one of the most basic gummis out there. It's the Tremors sandworm of gummi worms. It puts the gummy worm in the chocolate cake "mud" to shame. Scratch the Tremors reference. It's the Dune worm of gummi worms. I want to strap on a nose plug, put in some neon blue contacts, and ride this worm.

But, like almost all Flix candy, these monster gummis have one unfortunate flaw. They taste a lot like what I'd imagine licking the Toxic Avenger's mop would taste like. I could barely get a bite of the tentacle down, and don't get me started on the earthworm. It smelled like a racquetball with a similar consistency to boot. Seriously, all kidding aside, this is a plea to the folks at Flix Candy:

"For the love of all that's holy, please fire your chef and make your overpriced and exquisitely designed gummi candy edible. Thank you."

]]> Halloween 2009 Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:45:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=531714# Shawn Michael Robare No It's coming, creeping and crawling its way like a shambling zombie towards your mortal soul... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=512688#

I was going to hold this post until Friday, but I've got a short week at work, and since today feels a whole heck of a lot like Friday I thought why the hell not! Have I ever mentioned that I really dig Halloween? Oh yeah, I guess I have. Well there are only seven days left until the season starts proper, and I have to say that I'm super jazzed about participating in another round of daily Halloween blogging, my fourth to date. I've been prepping for this year's countdown to Halloween for the last four months, trying to come up with a theme that'll be fun on a lot of levels, and then it hit me sometime towards the end of this past June. 2009 has been a banner year for a particular 80s film and cartoon franchise, the one and only Ghostbusters. It's the 25th anniversary of the original film, the 20th anniversary of the sequel, and this past year we saw the release of the complete animated series on DVD (which, by the by, is available on Amazon for only $114), as well as a new line of action figures released by Matty Collector that are pretty darn cool. Also on a personal note, it was just about three years ago that I really began banging this website into a shape that was more along the lines of what I had in mind when I started this whole Branded in the 80s venture with the first official Peel Here sticker column that featured, you guessed it, the Ghostbusters.

So I was thinking back to last year's countdown and one of the things that I enjoyed sharing were a handful of animation cels from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. So, for this year's countdown, in honor of the various anniversaries and releases, I thought it would be fun to dig back into my collection of animation cels and share some of my favorite monsters featured on the RGB cartoon. One of the things that's really special about the cartoon was the vast variety of monsters, ghosts, and creeps that were in the episodes. I've picked up a handful of these over the last year and each day in October I'll feature a new monster-centric cel (and any accompanying pencil under-drawings) from my collection. My wife and I sat down and tried to order these from least scary to uncomfortably creepy, so it should be really fun come All Hallows Eve. It's the 31 Days of Monsters!

To give a hint of what's to come, I thought I'd share an appropriately themed cel from the Real Ghostbustersâ

I fell in love with this cel from the first moment I laid eyes on it because it combines two of my favorite things, 80s cartoons and Halloween. When I share these on the site I like to try and use it as an opportunity to try and learn something about the process of animation by investigating contextural clues. For instance, I thought it was interesting that the kid bringing up the rear, the mad scientist or whatever he is, has some weird repaints to him. If you look closely (click on the image to zoom in), his brain/helmet was touched up on top of the cel. Typically all of the painting is done on the back of the cel so that the photocopied black line art sits on top of all the layers of paint underneath. The artist also had to touch up his eye, so my guess is that they painted his entire head and face the same flesh color and had to fix it.

Also, you'll notice that a lot of the black line work is super faded on the cel, turning to a light purple/brown in spots. I've noticed this in a lot of the Real Ghostbusters cels, and it's one of those aspects to American companies sending their physical animation work overseas to save time and money. Part of what makes it cheaper is the supplies anf materials used. Honestly though, I don't know how much of this mattered at the time the animation was done, as it's stuff that could have faded over time, and these cels were certainly not meant to be scrutinized 22 years after they were produced.

I also really enjoyed the pencil under-drawing for this piece. I love it when the animators put that extra bit of effort into the drawings with separate colors and such to illustrate the differences between overlapping characters and where shadows need to be placed in the final painted cel. It's also kind of neat to pull back the curtain a bit and see any notes, even if it is in code (or sometimes other languagesâ)

So I hope everyone enjoys the theme, and I can't wait to start posting some proper monsters. I'm going to update the site each night, 13 minutes after midnight, so check back often to see what's in store!

Also, this is a perfect opportunity to point to a bunch more blogs that'll be participating in this year's Halloween Countdown. As I've mentioned over the past month, I helped create a site that will hopefully act as a resource, corralling the sites that are joining in on the spooky fun. You can find it at the Countdown to Halloween or you can click the handy banner belowâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:04:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=512688# Shawn Michael Robare No Some candy selections from the 2009 season... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=529080# Netherworld Haunted Houses are just about to open their doors here in Atlanta (as well as accepting a new performer/puppeteer, congratulations Liz from Puppatoons!) Most of the stores have their seasonal sections up, and the candy is flowing freely. Also, it seems like every year I go through a similar phase during September. Around the 1st of the month I start getting excited for the holiday, and then before I know it the entire month flies by in a haze. The Countdown to Halloween night begins in just one week!

As I mentioned on Monday, I plan on announcing my theme on the 25th (this Friday), and then the festivities will properly begin just after midnight on October 1st. We should also have the preliminary list of Countdown to Halloween bloggers up around the same time as well, so keep and eye out for that. As for today, I thought I'd take a second and mention some of the interesting candy I've seen so far. Honestly, besides the Bat and Candy Corn Dots, I really haven't found anything that's peaked my interest. Most of the stuff is pretty standard fare, or repeats of stuff from the last couple years. Aside from the various mini candy bars, Twizzlers, and multi-packs of Wonka branded confections (like the Giant Nerds), I've seen a lot more off-brand "gourmet" candy corn in all sorts of odd fruity flavors. I've even seen some chocolate covered candy corn which sounds utterly decadent, and not in a good way.

One thing that popped out at me this year is another selection from Flix candy called Spooky Lip Pops. These have been around for the last couple years but I've hesitated in picking them up because the track record for decent tasting Flix candy isn't all that good. They seem to have a great handle on design, but that's about it. Surprisingly, these creepy variations on the tried and true Ring Pop are pretty darn tasty.

I was glad too because I'd of hated myself if I ended up only liking the packagingâ

Next up we have a staple of candy lovers everywhere, Pez. Though it's nothing new or exciting, I did think it was interesting to see a bag of mini Pez refills on the bulk candy shelves. Typically you only see some season dispensers in the novelty candy section, and most people probably wouldn't pop for a bunch of those to give out to trick-or-treaters. Hell, most kids these days probably aren't enamored with Pez (relegating it to the much maligned Smarties category), but I've always loved it. There are even mini packs of Cherry Pez, which I've never actually seen in stores (only heard about in movies like Stand By Me.)

Ever since the appearance of the Gummi Frog Dissection Kit at Target a couple years ago, it's become a yearly tradition to try and find the most ostentatious gummi product on candy shelves, and each year I've managed to find something bigger and crazier. Last year Wal-Mart had a three-foot long gummi snake. This year they're offering something doubly as crazy, a 48", two-headed monstrosity of a realistic gummi snake that even features two gummi rats as snake food!

Granted, I'm well aware that if you really want an insane gummi you can order one of the 5lb bears from Vat19 for $30, but for only $5 you can have more freaky gummi goodness than most people can handle. The two-headed snake design is just crazy, but 48" of solid gummi candy is insane. Luckily it even tastes good; though there's no way I'll be able to finish it. It's just too much gummi for one man.

I had wanted to do a write up of this year's Wal-Mart Halloween section, but honestly it was pretty bland. I did want to mention a weird trend in their candy pail offerings this year though. Aside from the growing number of cartoon and movie branded candy buckets which are never very seasonal, I noticed that the large display of your standard plastic pumpkins have abandoned their tried and true orange hue. All that were on the display were various neon variations in blue, purple, green and yellow. Maybe the store hadn't fully deployed it's plastic pumpkin army, but if they have then it's a crying shameâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:29:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=529080# Shawn Michael Robare No Peel Here #94: A lone Snork... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=528659#

I still have a small stack of stickers that are in desperate need of scanning, so to buy myself another week I present a lone Snorks foil vending sticker from 1984â

Though I've had this sticker for awhile, it didnât really dawn on me until I was putting together this post that Allstar here is rocking out to a video game that looks like it involves blowing up other Snorks. On the one hand, it's not all that disturbing, I mean it's not like we donât have six trillion games that involve hunting down and killing other people. But there's something a little off about a cartoon character playing Grand Theft Snork.

I never really got into the Snorks all that much, though I do remember watching some episodes here and there on the USA Cartoon Express. I think they always sort of felt like a low-rent version of the Smurfs to me. I'm kind of curious to revisit the cartoon though since I really dig the underwater environment.

I also wanted to take a second and let everyone know that my posting schedule might slow down for a bit during the next 10 days as I gear up for the insanity of this years Countdown to Halloween event. I hope to get everything in order before Friday, which is when I'm going to reveal my theme for 2009. If you're curious about all the community Halloween blogging that's going to start up on October 1st, then you might want to head on over to the Countdown to Halloween blog and see what's up. ]]> Peel Here Volume 8 Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:12:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=528659# Shawn Michael Robare No The new Target Halloween and some thoughts on commercialistic branding... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=526949#
Similarly there's an odd rift that develops in the level of acceptance for this monster of commercialistic branding. The further away we get from something, or if we have a window into which we can see the process of business entropy, the fonder our memories become. As a for instance, who absolutely, 100% adores the corporate branding of McDonald's? My guess is that most people would say "Not me." Of the various demographics that would respond to the corporate branding and products offered, I'd be willing to bet a good percentage wouldn't hate McDonald's, would even admit that they eat there from time to time, but would also admit that they either don't like being sold food through the various cartoon characters or special promotions or they just plain wouldn't care. At the same time though, I wonder who out there misses McRib sandwiches, Shamrock shakes, Officer Big Mac, the Professor or Captain Crook? My guess is that most of the people who would recognize these things would probably admit to a fondness for these products and characters. It's still the same type of low quality food and shilly mascots, but through the haze of memory they seem so much cooler.

So why am I bringing this up today in a post about some pre-Halloween excitement? Well, I can't help but love Target around this time of year. In fact, of all the Halloween traditions I've been adopting over the past decade, exploring the new spooky displays each year at the mega department store chain is fast becoming the start to my seasonal fun. I know there's something a little unhealthy about getting so excited about new store displays, seasonal branding, corporate themes, and intellectual property partnerships, but I do.

In fact, for once I can feel the future nostalgia building as all of this stuff, the characters, products, and signage starts seeping into my consciousness. I can already see the day when the company will switch gears to follow a new, cheaper, pared down trend, and I can already feel myself missing the current one. It's sort of like that clichÃ wish where one imagines utilizing time travel to go back and grab all the stuff that you miss from your childhood, except I'm already there. The future me is sending back messages via brainwave wifi technologies, begging me to scoop up every piece of flat scan-able branding, or elseâ

Honestly, this isn't even a reaction to the undeniable awesomeness of this year's crop of Target Halloween goodies. Some of it is pretty darn cool, but it's nothing all that special. I just know I'll miss it when it's gone.

So what exactly is it that I'll miss? For one, Target finally hit the nail on the head in terms of finding the perfect pre-existing property to partner themselves with. In years past they've featured unique branding like the Edgar and Ellen characters, which, though appropriately seasonal, were a little bit too spindly in design, and maybe a little too specific in character as they have a well-defined back story in the book series. Last year the theme was Domo, which though neat in and of itself, was sort of a misfire in terms of Halloween branding. Dressing Domo up like Frankenstein doesn't make him seasonal (that's a trick Disney has been attempting to much greater success with much more recognizable branding and characters for years.)

This year though the partnership is with Skelanimals, a line of gothy, stuffed animals and clothing. The basic premise revolves around a spooky design for what I assume are dead animals that makes each character look like a living x-ray where the skull and bones are visible. It has the taste of Johnny and his gang of Cobra Kai during the Halloween dance scene in Karate Kid. Personally I think this is a genius licensing agreement. Not only are the Skelanimals cute and iconic, but they've got a head of steam developed via stores like Hot Topic where they've been featured prominently for a few years. For the uninitiated they don't necessarily carry any anti-goth resentment baggage either. They're at the perfect buoyant level between under and over exposed, and they just feel like something that Target would have come up with on their own. Oh and my wife loves them to death.

Along with some neat exclusive glow-in-the dark plush variants, the Target Halloween section also features a million other Skelanimal branded products like pillows, key chains, hats, gloves, t-shirts, hoodies, candies (M&M exclusives and little tins of mints), as well as a trifecta of brand merging with the release of Target specific Skelanimal Bounty paper towels & napkins and Puffs tissues. There's also a line of hard plastic figurines that could easily be mistaken for vinyl toys (because we did)â

One of the aspects of the Target Halloween section that I love is that they don't put all their eggs in one basket. In addition to the main theme each year there are also mini ones directed at different demographics. Where as Skelanimals are there to target the tween, teen and twenty-something's, there is also a more generic house branding that aims at the 30-something's and older crowd. For the past few years this section has been devoted to El DÃa de los Muertos, the Mexican Day of the Dead holiday. This year this is being morphed into a more tattoo centric crowned skull and dragon themeâ

Personally I think it's a little weird and trendy, but then I tend to stray away from most generic iconography when it doesn't have a particular story to tell. I love skulls in general, but they're so simple and relatable (we've all got 'em.) When you throw a crown on them, then it becomes pointlessly specific and enters into that realm of punk/biker clip-art that just makes my stomach queasy (like the ace of spaces, a set of snake eyes dice, barbed wire, an eyeball in a ball of flame, or a burlesque girl lounging in a martini glass.) I just donât get the appeal, especially considering that this subculture tends towards individuality, but these symbols just become a uniform.

Along with this theme Target is offering a new version of their over-sized skull candy dish greeter that I fell so hard for last year, though it's less Day of the Dead and more brushed metalâ

The last demographic that Target has been attempting to capture is the more obvious youth market which is the bread and butter of Halloween. In the last couple of years they've been doing this a little awkwardly with the Edgar and Ellen and Domo branded products, but there's always been an in-house branding that hasn't gotten a lot of attention featuring cute child-like versions of Frankenstein, Dracula, a witch and some creepy animals like cats and spiders. Mainly these characters have ended up on the various paper products (plates, one-use table cloths, paper towels, etc.) and in my opinion they weren't pimped quite enough. This year Target has introduced seven new characters, three of which are being heavily featured on a lot of different products ranging from candy to candy bowls. There's a neat blue witch (that looks like a cross between Sally from A Nightmare Before Christmas and Jill Thompson's Scary Godmother), a little kid dressed up as a devil (that's reminiscent of Lock, also from A Nightmare Before Christmas), a ghost, a weird one-eyed bat, and three monsters. These three monster characters are what really impressed me with the new spread in the store..

They've even gone so far as to name them, giving them a little bit more individual identities. First up we've got Trex, the green Godzilla-esque lizard monsterâ

Next up is Schmorg, the furry, orange, one-eyed, Cousin It, chocoholic of the gangâ

And last, Zen, the three-eyed, happy, blue gangly monsterâ

On the one hand I love the character designs, even on Zen who is straying from the typical Halloween color-scheme. These are a weird cross between the work of comic writer/artist Evan Dorkin (of Milk & Cheese, Hectic Planet, and Dork fame) and the tone and feel of the monstrous characters on Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. In fact Dorkin has been doing a series of monster drawings on his blog that are so close to these Target characters that if they didn't hire him to design them, then the folks who did must have been fans and heavily influenced. My favorite bit of branding with these monsters are the ceramic candy dishesâ

Unfortunately, as far as the actual candy and goodies go, besides the new additions to the Dots family, there wasn't much to speak about this year at Target. The Jones Soda offerings are the same from last year and I haven't found any interesting candy that wasn't available before. I was hoping to find a new series of the Nerds test tubes or some other obnoxiously giant gummies, but there really wasn't anything exciting. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to make due with the new branding.

Again, since I'm invoking Halloween, I thought I should point to the Countdown to Halloween site. It's a resource for finding excellent Halloween blogging content during this coming season. As I've mentioned, it's the home for a list of blogs participating in the ghoulish fun of the holiday. I've also created a couple badge/buttons you can use to show your creepy pride and participation in the event if you'd like. I plan on posting every day during October, and I've chosen a wicked theme that I hope everyone digs. The festivities start in 13 short days!

]]> Halloween 2009 Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:29:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=526949# Shawn Michael Robare No Peel Here #93: A sad substitute for a lack of BJ and the Bear stickers... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=521811#

I figure that since I have an essay up this week at Monkey Goggles (the swell Archie McPhee online literary magazine), I should try and keep with a simian theme. I've been sitting on this week's selection of stickers for awhile now and I don't know why. These came from Anne and Jerzy Drozd and were part of a larger collection, but I felt they deserved to sit apart and shine because they're so damn APpEaling. Stupid pun aside, seriously who doesn't love a monkey? Well my friend Darrel for one. On his first trip to Thailand he reported on just how annoying these little critters can get when they become used to living side by side with a human population. It's all poop flinging, inappropriate goosing, and theft. I'm not saying all apes and monkeys are horrible to deal with, I saw King Kong (the '31 on thank you very much), I cried during Project X, I have a heart.

I guess I didn't want to just go the normal route when evoking the monkey and pander to the nerdgasm that tends to come in their wake (can you imagine if there were ninjas, pirates, and zombies in this post?) Anyway, I'm not sure what year these hail from, though the collection I received had stuff that ranged from late 70s to around '84-'85, so something around there sounds about right. I'm thinking earlier rather than later judging by the style of the striped shirt on banana-eating-monkey number one, and the abundance of orangutans (which were like KISS-huge in the late 70s.)

I can't even begin to convey how cool it is that we got a fez wearing organ-grinder monkey in the set. That would have been the first one I chose to include, that's for sure. I'm also glad there are no see-no-hear-no-speak-no trio as that gag can get kind of tired (unless the speak-no gets booted and they make a movie starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryorâ) To be honest, I'm kind of missing a rainbow-butted baboon or a creepy winged monkey though, but I can't have everything.

Seriously, where are all the BJ and the Bear sticker sets at?
]]> Peel Here Volume 8 Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:55:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=521811# Shawn Michael Robare No I paid 1000 monkeys to write the great American novel of my youth, and the result, Spam... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=526007#

I just wanted to take a second and point to the super rad new online literary magazine called Monkey Goggles (an offshoot of the schizo-kitsch store Archie McPhee.) For one there's a lot of swell content up like the trials and tribulations of a corporate wolf man (by David Wahl), Close Encounters with Penn Jillette (by Geoff Carter), the Do's & Don'ts of Eponymous Album titles (by Kirk Demarais of the Secret Fun Blog), as well as the heartfelt confessions of a former fast food employee (by Shel Carrigan of the Surfing Pizza.)

Secondly, I have an article/essay up today that centers around my high school era obsession with absurdist Spam humor (the pork product, not that junk mail.) There's a lot of passion over there and it can be blinding, so do yourself a favor and pull on some imaginary Monkey Goggles, if not just to read my piece than to check out some great stories and essays by the other talented folk. You'll thank yourself in the morning.

]]> Monkey Goggles Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:30:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=526007# Shawn Michael Robare No Allee Willis is simply the bee's knees... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=525813#

(Allee Willis and Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens)

Do you ever have one of those days where everything seems to just coalesce? Last Friday I woke up to a pseudo press release in my inbox announcing the opening of the Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch on September 14th, and of course the first question that would come out of my mouth had I been awake enough to be enthusiastically talking to myself was, "Who is Allee Willis?" I tend to get a decent amount of press releases about 80s themed or kitsch/ephemera projects, usually revolving around hip hop groups featuring a bunch of geeky white guys name dropping Axel Foley, He-Man and Rubik's Cubes. It becomes an automatic process to read through them just far enough to know when it's time to stop and then I flush 'em out of my short term memory. There was something about this one that stuck with me though.

I didn't think about it all that much, but it was the beginning of a day of odd connections. When I got into work I stuck one of my favorite mixed CDs into the computer, psyching myself up for a long day of data entry and cataloging media tapes. The CD features some of my favorite movie anthems including Michael Sembello's Rock Until You Drop from the Monster Squad, Cyndi Lauper's the Goonies are Good Enough, the Fight Song from the Karate Kid, the Cherry Bombs songs from Howard the Duck, the Pointer Sister's Neutron Dance from Beverly Hills Cop, as well as some stuff from Rad, the Legend of Billie Jean and Thrashin'. Little did I know that almost half of the tunes I was rocking out to were written or co-written by Ms. Willis. Part of the reason I broke out this CD was that my good friend Kevin and I were going to watch Howard the Duck for the upcoming evening's movie night we hold each Friday.

Anyway, as the day wore on I hit a bunch of sites while on break looking for some fun stuff to read about. One stop was finally sitting down to read Kirk Demarais' first article on Archie McPhee's new online literary magazine, Monkey Goggles. The article takes a look at some selections from the 1959 PICO Novelty catalog, in particular a great flask with an awesome kitschy plastic head called the Hip Nip.

I've seen a bunch of novelty flasks, but none quite this novel and fun. I mean drinking out of a flask that looks like a little tipsy man is just bizarre. After a bit more web browsing, I remembered to take a closer look at what this Allee Willis was all about. I whipped over to her blog and started digging through the archives, marveling at her insane collection of odds and ends. Lo and behold Ms. Willis has her own Hip Nip in the collection. She even has the sister flask, the Hot Nip. I love it when I find these kind of connections in the junkyard of pop culture. It's like some sort of affirmation for my interests, as if everything is starting to make sense. Flipping through the entries in Willis' blog I couldn't help but fall in love with some of her treasures like a fleshy pink cup molded in the image of Mr. Peanut, or this Monty Python Nights-of-Ni-esque four-headed Monkees dollâ

She even has one of the coolest pieces of wall art known to mankind, a vintage Billie Dee Williams endorsed Colt 45 malt liquor electric sign. Who do I have to kill to get a hold of one of these beauties?

This is the sort of stuff that I would love to find while digging through antique shops and flea markets. I never have this kind of luck though, so I can't help but love the idea of the Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch! You can check out a sneak peek at what to expect by watching this trailer...

As I mentioned above the website is set to open proper tomorrow, Monday the 14th of September in tandem with a week-long physical exhibit in Los Angeles at the newly relocated Ghettogloss art gallery on Melrose. The gallery will be "âdisplaying hundreds of amazing artifacts from her rarely-seen-in-person kitsch collection and will frequently be on hand greeting visitors and discussing the Allee Willis Museum of kitsch. Allee's grand kitsch exhibition will feature two fabulous AWMoK launch parties (on Monday, Sept. 14th and Monday, Sept. 21st); the debut of her delightful "What Is Kitsch?" short film series; Allee's unveiling of her featured "Kitsch O' The Day" blog item live at noon daily in the gallery's front window on L.A.'s ever-popular Melrose Avenue; her usual megaton of scrumptious junk food; specially created gourmet treats from L.A.'s hottest new restaurant, Susan Feniger's Street, of which Allee is part owner; live auctions of spectacular kitsch masterpieces hand-picked by Allee herself; a first-time-ever public raffle to win a guided tour of Allee's exclusively private Willis Wonderland; a not-to-be-missed karaoke sing-off of Allee's classic Earth Wind & Fire hit, "September," at the party on the night of the 21st."

To cap last Friday off, and after watching Howard the Duck with my friend, we were scanning to credits to see if Lea Thompson actually sang on any of the Cherry Bombs' songs, when I noticed that Allee Willis co-wrote practically everything on that soundtrack. Though she's probably better known for writing Boogie Wonderland and co-writing the theme song to Friends, it's her work on the various movie soundtracks of the 80s that I appreciate the most. I never knew just how much she influenced me and I can't believe I didn't even know her name until this past weekend. If you get a second and want to be wowed by an insanely awesome collection of sublime pop culture, head on over to Allee Willis' blog and be sure to check out the launch of her Museum on Monday. Be sure to tell her that Shawn from Branded in the 80s sent ya!

]]> general Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:09:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=525813# Shawn Michael Robare No Peel Here #92: Smurf Me up the smurf... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=524635#

You know, aside from the couple of upcoming DVD announcements here and there it's hard to believe that I really haven't talked all that much about the Smurfs over the last three years. Then again, I'm not sure what I really have to add to the pantheon of pop culture commentary on these little blue Belgian guys and gals created by Peyo (Pierre Culliford) back in 1958. Like most kids who grew up in the 80s I watched the Hanna Barbera cartoon every Saturday morning, and like most reminisces I've read over the years I got bored of the show and stopped watching as soon as Johan and Peewit came on the scene (even though the characters pre-date the Smurfs and seem to be beloved in much of the rest of the world, I felt they just got in the way on the cartoon.) I never really got into collecting the little PVC figures as a kid, probably because they seemed kind of cutesy and my mom knew I was really into He-Man at the same time.

For me the Smurfs have sort of become the perfect icon for Saturday morning cartoons of the 80s. They had such a huge revival here in the states at the time and thereâs something so simple and pure about the character design that they speak to me much in the same way that Mickey Mouse speaks to most other people. In the mid 90s when I was fumbling around for an online handle and e-mail address I couldn't get my brain off the idea of utilizing the Smurfs. It was around that time that I first started feeling pangs of nostalgia for my childhood, and it just seemed fitting. Somehow or another I ended up with smurfwreck, and it's just stuck.

Anyway, I haven't really tried that hard to put together a collection of Smurfs stickers. I think I received all of these as extras with other sticker orders I've placed on ebay or from friends who've sent some collections my way. But they added up enough to be worth a Peel Here post. First up is a sheet of sports-themed puffy stickers dated 1980, though I think these actually hit store shelves around 1982â

Then we have a handful of these die-cut stickers from 1983 that were originally offered on large rolls. You'd tear off the number you wanted and pat for them by the sticker. There's something kind of neat about that idea, almost like stickers by the pound or something. Again, it just goes to show how crazy the sticker collecting phenomenon was back in the dayâ

These are only a small sample of what was available. Being part of one of the largest fads in the 80s, the Smurfs were on all kinds of merchandise from t-shirts to lunchboxes. I know I've seen a series of Trend-like scratch-n-sniff stickers, and I'm sure there were the more standard sticker sheet stickers as well. You know, considering how popular they once were, it's surprising that the Smurfs haven't made a comeback before now. I just recently saw some new plush toys at my local Toys R Us, and then there's also that new all CG film on the horizon, but this franchise really does seem like it's ripe for something bigger. My idea for the perfect product tie-in are Gargamel brand gummi smurfs, so you can eat them just like he always wanted to...

]]> Peel Here Volume 8 Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:13:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=524635# Shawn Michael Robare No Spoiler Alert! Orson Welles is looking for a lost sled. It answers to the name Rosebud... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=524302# 80s era Lamborghini Countach (which I an want to do), spoilers refer to any bit of information in a, typically fictional, creative work that reveals a thought, idea, plot point, or action that would ruin any surprise in partaking said narrative. Soylent Green isâa classic example of why the word spoiler has become so common that it's starting to really piss me off.

I should back up a second and clarify that I don't intend to spoil any movies, books, or even the 3rd movement Rondo in Mozart's E-flat piano concerto #9, K. 271. My gripes with spoilers have little to do with the classic definition of the act, but more in how people react to the phenomenon, and in particular those people interested in any sort of movie, television or literary criticism. I get so sick of this fear of using spoilers when reading reviews or listening to podcasts that attempt to host a discussion about a creative work. My feeling is that worthwhile and useful criticism comes from a through deconstruction of the work at hand. Even if it's a targeted deconstruction, I think the dialogue has to be explicit. Generalities and tip-toeing around a subject can only lead to allusions, confusion or an ambiguous and therefore pointless discussion. If you're going to talk about a damn movie, than talk about the damn movie.

Everyone seems so concerned with being spoiled or spoiling something for someone else. Again, I understand why, but there are unspoken ground rules that come with talking about stuff, and writers or hosts shouldn't have to censor for the benefit of the audience. The audience should have the wherewithal to know when to turn off a podcast or to stop reading a review before they've seen a film or whatever. If I'm going to listen to a podcast about the original Heston Planet of the Apes flick then it should be obvious the hosts are going to talk about Planet of the damned dirty Apes. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, it's from Michael Crichton (by way of his father) where he learns a lesson in the uselessness of continuing any sentence that begins with "Obviouslyâ" His father said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that if a statement is truly obvious then it doesn't need to be stated. To me spoiler warnings in reviews and movie themed podcasts fall under this category. Now, if I'm reading a review comparing Capt'n Crunch w/Crunchberries with Capt'n Crunch's Choco Crunch and the author lets slip that Darth Vader is really Luke Skywalker's dad, then maybe a case can be made for bad judgment.

On a separate note, and this is just my opinion, but as far as the actual spoiling of creative work goes, if it can be spoiled by revealing a single fact then that fact is not much more than a gimmick. Gimmicks tend to be devious by nature, they're utilized to deceive and trick one into thinking that something is more than it really is. Granted not all gimmicks are about the con, there are some that are more about the novelty factor, adding some form of functional or artistic enrichment. Either way it's fleeting. Camera phones are nifty, but they're no replacement for a real camera when it comes to quality. The reason I spoiled Empire Strikes Back at the end of the last paragraph is because the film doesn't hinge on learning that Luke is Vader's son. It only adds depth to a great film; it's just a moment with a little bit of gravitas. It's textbook Greek Tragedy. Besides, you didn't hear anyone pissed off at Lucas for ruining the un-filmed back story to the first Star Wars flick during the opening credits text crawl. If the reveal of the plot is so important to a story, my question is how important is the rest of that story?

Most of the famous film spoilers are interesting, but they hardly ruin the experience of seeing the film. It's also a weird statement on what it means to enjoy a creative work. If spoiling ruins an experience, how does anybody ever watch something a second time without throwing their arms up and declaring that they ruined the film for themselves by watching it that one time before? Surprise is fun sometimes, but it's not the end all be all of experience. Same thing for romanticizing first experiences. I don't know about anyone else, but my first exposure to most things are usually interesting but not as fulfilling as when I've got a little bit of experience under my belt, including my appreciation of film and literature. ]]> general Wed, 9 Sep 2009 14:33:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=524302# Shawn Michael Robare No Who'd of thought Dots candy would be this cool? http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=523118#

I suppose I should start with something old. My favorite Halloween candy from the past two years has to be the genius Ghost Dots from Tootsie. When I first saw these in 2007 I couldn't believe just how perfect this variation on your standard Dots candy seemed. It's so simple, and yet so intriguing. They started with the run of the mill mystery flavor gimmick, removing the typical colors (but keeping the original flavors) and going with a monochromatic scheme. The first inspired stroke of genius was choosing the glow-in-the-dark pale minty and slightly translucent green evoking all sorts of ectoplasmic ecstasy. Then it must have been clear to call them Ghost dots as they're already iconicly shaped (just a jagged trim along the bottom short of being the perfect Pac-Man ghosts.) It's just so freaking simple and pureâ

There were no new additions to the spectral Dots family last year, but this year the guys and gals at Tootsie surprised me by introducing two new varieties. The first one I'd like to showcase is better, both design and taste-wise, of the new duo (though it doesn't quite trump the awesomeness of the Ghost Dots.) Blood Orange flavored Bat Dotsâ

Though visually these aren't as interesting as the Ghost Dots, I have to say that I'm digging the inky black little guys. I'm not a big fan of the licorice flavored gummi candies, but I've always thought black candy just looked cool. Hell, everything looks so much better in black. I'm sort of lamenting the fact that Tootsie chose to stick with the classic shape for the candy. I think these are screaming out for bat wings, though I'm sure it would have been cost prohibitive for a seasonal confectionâ

As for the taste, these guys aren't half bad. They strike a nice balance between sweet and tart with a good hint of citrus, though I'm not sure how accurate the blood orange flavor is. I'm pretty sure they chose to utilize the creepy nomenclature specifically to evoke the holiday, but this opens up another area where these candies could have become legendary. Though classic Dots (as well as the Ghost variety) are individually comprised of a single color, the other new entry into the Dots family this year introduced a dual-colored Dot. Since the technology already apparently exists, I think the Bat Dots should have utilized this and had transparent red tops or bottoms. It would have just had that extra bit of fun. These are hardly a failure thoughâ

Anyway, the other new variety is another in a long line of candy corn influenced sweetness. I've written about my feelings towards the uber sweet tri-colored kernels before, and I have to say that Iâm really not a fan of candy that tries to disguise itself as the classic Halloween staple if for no other reason than the flavors end up tasting way too much like cotton candy (which I despise, at least flavor-wise.)

I have to give this variety points for looking pretty cool, but it pretty much ends there. The first CC Dot I popped into my mouth wasn't bad. It had a mellow flavor more along the lines of caramel or sweet cream. The second was just too sweet. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th just tasted like chemicals, and the rest will probably find a home in the trash.

One out of two isn't bad though, and adding Bat Dots to the family portrait with the Ghost Dots gets me excited for future installments. I'm personally holding out for Witch's Warts Dots, all white Ghost Dots II in a new flavor, and Silver Bullet Dots (you know, for killing gummi werewolves.)

While I'm on the subject of Halloween, I might as well take this opportunity to announce a new website called Countdown to Halloween!

Basically, over the last three years I've noticed an amazing trend in some spooktactular holiday spirit when it comes to the celebration of all things Halloween. There have certainly been those (like Matt at x-entertainment.com) that have been spreading the good word for awhile, and there are a plethora of wonderful sites out there dedicated to making every day of the year a little bit more orange and black, but in the last few years there has been a surge in fiendish fun around the month of October that really gets this dried up and dusty ticker of my beating again. In particular, in the past two years there has appeared a list, usually cobbled together by a couple of swell guys John Rozum and John Knutson, that gets passed around from site to site and really makes the whole experience fun and exciting. For one, it provides a virtual vault of horror, a crypt of terror, a, um (well geez, I guess EC Comics should have come up with another great title for me to lift from), oh wait I know, a tomb of dread, a virtual cornucopia of amazing stories, photos, comics, reviews, crafts, toys, songs, radio plays, jokes, and general commentary on a holiday that a lot of us hold dear. This list also serves as a centerpiece for a spur of the moment community, a virtual meeting place, and the type of communal experience where the internet is the perfect forum.

Countdown to Halloween is a home for this list. Note, it's not the home. Part of what makes this season of creepy blog-a-thons so special is that there is no expectation, no rules or guidelines, but at the same I think it would also be beneficial to have a place to point to, a hub. This isn't a union; it's intended as a resource.

So if you're planning on another year of terror inducing blogging during the Halloween season, or if this is your first time trick-or-treating alone, feel free to let your intentions be known. You can either comment at the Countdown to Halloween site, add your voice to the comments on Mr. Rozum's blog, or you can @tweet or follow Halloween_Blogs, on twitter.

As for my plans for this season, well, I'll announce those as we get a little closer to Octoberâ

]]> Halloween 2009 Sun, 6 Sep 2009 02:09:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=523118# Shawn Michael Robare No Peel Here #91: Attempting to jump over the flagpole only results in racking Mario in the nuts... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=522653#

Most of the time I feel like I'm pretty in tune with the geeky nerd milieu having an appreciation for comic books, cartoons, toys, and general pop culture. There are areas where I feel seriously deficient though, in particular gadgets, but more importantly video games. If there is anything in this world that has the reach and power to bring together almost all of the splintered groups and cliques in our society it's a well constructed and executed video game. This has been true since before the first Pac-Man arcade cabinet was placed in the corner of a Pizza Hut, when teens were hanging out and playing pinball and table-top bowling in soda shoppes.

On the one hand the mass appeal of games in general is so rooted in our culture that it's hard to imagine any household in the world that doesn't at least have a chess board, some dominoes, or a set of Rummikub tiles. The culture moves with technology, so even when we have a character like R.J. MacReady surviving in the frozen wasteland of the Antarctic in John Carpenter's the Thing, heâs playing computer chess. The mass appeal of video games just makes sense. On the other hand the intricate plots, insanely anal retentive button combo sequences, and the tendency towards extreme genre themes really should keep the audience for games at the niche level. When I bring up my favorite episodes of the Justice League Unlimited cartoon in conversation with most co-workers I get that blank, sort of bemused stare in return belying their true inner reaction which is wondering if I'm really a moron or if I'm borderline retarded for watching cartoons as an adult. But if World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto or even the new Ghostbusters game is brought up they become a virtual fountain of nerdy, excited info. I don't understand the disconnect.

Anyway, this is a very long way of getting back to the point, which is that I'm not really into video games. I should be based on most of my interests, but I'm not, at least not since I was twelve, which is when these great Topps Nintendo themed stickers were released back in 1989â

The summer of 1989 was probability the apex of the era of classic video gaming. It was still common to find arcades in most suburban strip malls, Nintendo Power was in full swing with a very successful first year under its belt, and the Wizard was mere months away from opening in theaters. In fact, by the time that flick bombed during December of that year everything was beginning to change, though that's a story for another time. In '89 classic gaming was still king, and this sticker set features some of the best that Nintendo had to offer at that point.

Though I was weaned on the Atari 2600, the NES was my console of choice, not that I had a lot of choices. The video game market was pretty much overrun by Nintendo and that goofy little meatball Mario was the new Pac-Man. Though I spent a fair bit of my parent's mad money on renting a million NES games from the local video store, there was really only one game that kept my interest, the original Super Mario Bros.

For me, the most important aspect of video games is the value of repeat playability. Most Atari and early arcade games were designed this way, eschewing plot and story for exponentially difficult versions of the same levels that seemed to go on infinitely. Super Mario Bros. both epitomized and broke this convention. The game introduced a very structured environment with a clear beginning, middle, and end goal, but at the same time kept the difficulty level of the gameplay moderately stable so exploring every little facet of each level became key. For the first time the idea of playing a video game wasn't just about surviving through level after level, but to also systematically stomp or fireball every enemy while also making sure to bust every set of bricks, unlocking every single hidden coin or 1-up mushroom. I spent more time trying to perfectly uncover every single hidden block, getting more than 100 lives by trapping a turtle shell in mid bounce-back, and finding every single warp zone than I did trying to fight Koopa and rescuing the princess.

By the time Super Mario 2 came out I was a maniac for the franchise. I can't express how jazzed I was that the designers integrated the concept of picking up objects, digging up veggies, or having the ability to play different characters (each having a slight advantage over others.) It was simply mind blowing to me at the time. Anyway, Mario was my main man even though that Toad sure could dig. As far as these stickers go, I think they're pretty neat. In particular I like the roadster Mario because it's a completely unintentional foreshadowing of the Mario Kart games that would come. Also, it looks like he's driving a larger version of the car token from Monopoly. I also like the use of multiple stickers on a single card. This calls back to the Fleer Pac-Man and Topps Donkey Kong game cards from earlier in the 80s. Typically Topps only has one full or die-cut sticker on each card, though they did go the multiple-sticker route with the Superman movie stickers from the late 70s. Anyway, it's a nice touch that makes these stickers feel more in line with mini sticker sheets from Hallmark or something. Also, I have to say that the art on the Princess and Birdo stickers is pretty rough which is a little strange seeing as the game had been out for a while before these sticker cards hit store shelves. I guess Topps didn't work too hard to find nicer artâ

This set of stickers consisted of 33 cards and featured characters from three game series in addition to the Mario stickers above including the recently re-titled Punch Out!! (Nintendo didn't re-up their license with Mike Tyson to keep his likeness and moniker associated with the game), the Legend of Zelda, and Double Dragon. I was a pretty big fan of Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! and the first couple of Double Dragon games, but I didn't get into Zelda until awhile later when the 1st Super Nintendo game was released. I really love these stickers though, in particular the Zelda and Double Dragon stickers because they used some of the more Japanese styled artwork. The art on the Punch Out stickers looks like it was copied from the production artwork for the game box and instruction booklet. It's a little bit more ghetto in that respect.

Each of the cards featured random game hints on the back, no doubt culled from the experts at Nintendo Power. This just reminds me of the Nintendo Game Counselor 900 number that used to be in place. I never called it, but I always wondered what it was like to talk to the expertsâ

I've certainly turned into a crusty bitter old man when it comes to video games, as looking at these stickers just reminds me how much I used to love the "good stuff" that was out in the 80s. I'll be honest, I have little need for 3-D modeled graphics, 1st person perspective, or extravagant cut scenes. Give me an 8-bit side-scroller any dayâ

]]> Peel Here Volume 8 Fri, 4 Sep 2009 14:57:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=522653# Shawn Michael Robare No Extreme! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=522457#

This evening is was an extreme honor to sit next to my wife as she guest hosted an episode of the Art & Story Extreme!! podcast. Jerzy, Mark, my wife and I spent a half an hour talking about scary movies, inspiration to get off our butts and do something creative, and her new project demonals.com! It was a swell super rad conversation.

]]> podcasts Fri, 4 Sep 2009 01:27:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=522457# Shawn Michael Robare No Some more animation cels from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=521115#

In honor of episode 22 of the Saturday Supercast I thought I'd break out some of my Filmation He-Man animation cels. I have a few from one of the episodes we discussed on the podcast, episode 56 of season 1, Quest for the Swordâ

The first one I wanted to share today is of the character Raybar which comes from the last scene with this character in both the episode and the seriesâ

Raybar is an adventurous member of a race of rock people who live in a vast cave on Eternia. The cave contains a hole that leads to the center of the planet and provides a vast amount of mystic energy that is most likely the source of this race. In the episode Raybar finds He-Man's power sword and uses it to become what he believes is a great leader of the rock people, but in the end, as He-Man eloquently states, it just makes him a bully.

Anyway, I mainly picked up these rock men cels for a friend, but before I shipped them off I thought I'd scan them in and discuss them in hopes of digging a little deeper into the He-Man series. The thing that stood out to me the most about these cels is the color of the paint. When compared to the screen captures from the episode in question on DVD, the paint on the original cels appears a bit darker and a little more brown than gray. Part of this is my scanner, but the original is still a bit off from the original episode. I wonder is this is because the cels have sat around in storage for 26 years or if maybe BCI touched up the episodes on the DVDs, color correcting them digitally?

This cel also came with an accompanying pencil under-drawing which I always love to see. In this case the pencil drawing is missing the mouth of the creature as Ray bar was talking in this scene and it required a series of different mouth drawings. The cel I picked up came with a secondary cel that just had the one mouth position, so I guess there are a few other cels floating around with just Raybar mouths on them. Glad I managed to find the combo with the base drawing/painting of the creature included.

These other cels are all part of a single scene, though because of the movement required it was separated onto various layers. Included are Raybar with the power swordâ

âand his friend Togar with Man-At-Arms laser gun.

These two aren't nearly as tight when it comes to the line work. They're a bit sketchy, which I assume came out of a time crunch to get these episodes finished. Filmation was one of the 1st studios producing first run syndicated cartoons, which meant that they needed to finish 65 episodes of He-Man over the course of a year and that's a lot for any studio to handle. On top of this they were doing all of the work in-house which is monumental when you think about the hundreds of thousands of cels that needed to be produced for a 65 episode run. This episode was towards the end of the 1st season so I'd be willing to bet corners were being cut wherever they could. In this scene in particular Raybar and Togar are only onscreen in this position for a second before Orko swoops in front of the camera, so again, corners could be cut. Actually, if you'll notice from the screen grab below, the couple of cels that I have a slightly differentâ

In the screen grab you can see that Raybar's face wasn't completely drawn on the right. The characters were also shifting a little and by the time my two cels show up Orko is obscuring the characters. It's kind of weird to think that these cels are hidden since they're a bit cleaner than the two that end up unobscured on screen.)

On a slightly different note, I have to say that the character design on Togar is pretty weird and baby-like. It's kind of disturbing when you see him pitch a fit in the episode. ]]> He-Man Cartoon Commentary Wed, 2 Sep 2009 08:15:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=521115# Shawn Michael Robare No Saturday Supercast Episode 22: A continuation of the discussion on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=520996#

I'm really excited to be back this week with episode 22 of the Saturday Supercast! In this episode Jerzy, Kevin and I finish off our exploration of the first season of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Again, for those not familiar, in the series He-Man and his friends, the Sorceress, Man-At-Arms, Teela, Ram Man, Orko, and Stratos wage an endless battle defending Castle Greyskull and the planet Eternia against Skeletor and his evil warriors, Beastman, Evil-Lyn, Trap Jaw, Merman, and Triklops, who want to conquer and rule the world. The series, produced by Filmation Studios in 1983, was a landmark cartoon mixing fantasy and science-fiction, reinvigorating children's television with a sense of action and adventure, as well as helping to instill a solid sense of morality for an entire generation of kids. Masters of the Universe was also one of the first series to break through the governmental ban on interweaving existing toy lines and cartoons, not to mention paving the way for first-run syndicated animation, defining the distribution format for shows through the 80s and 90s.

Join us as we deconstruct the series, diving into another four of our favorite episodes:

The fan favorite Evilseedâ

âas well as the Dragon's Giftâ

âQuest for the Swordâ

âand Prince Adam No More.

In this Saturday Supercast episode we touch on a lot of the talent that made He-Man possible including series producers Lou Scheimer (who also voiced half of the cast of characters including Orko and Stratos), voice actors John Erwin (He-Man and Beastman) and Alan Openheimer (Skeletor and Man-At-Arms), as well as some of the writers and artists such as Larry DiTillio, Tom Sito and Michael Reaves.

We also dig into the immediately identifiable synthesizer music of He-Man (as well as its Wagnerian themes, lush quality, and a debate on whether or not it helps to bind the sci-fi and fantasy genres of the series or just dates it), the series' budgetary constraints as both boon and bane, 65 episode syndicated seasons vs. the more traditional (at the time) 13 episode Saturday morning seasons, jump-scares, Evilseed's secret under his robes, Billie Holiday's haunting rendition of the tragic song "Strange Fruit", Star Trek the Animated Series, solving problems with book smarts and the RIF (Reading is Fundamental) program, Ray Harryhausen, the Rankin/Bass Hobbit cartoon, horrible Irish stereotypes, the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock, Ents, the Visionaries, He-Man inspiring public office, Andy Mangels and his awesome work on the BCI Ink & Paint editions of He-Man on DVD, Bustatoon's He-Man & She-Ra Blog, Matty Collector's amazing new line of Masters of the Universe action figures, and the insanity of the Bollywood He-Man stage show!

If you're curious about watching this great series you can purchase a copy of season 1-part 1, or season 1-part 2 at Amazon, or head on over to Hulu where you can watch 13 of the 1st season episodes for free.

As for us, well you can find more of Jerzy's work at:
Make Like a Tree Comics
jdrozd.blogspot.com
Art & Story Podcast

Kevin is freelance illustrator, comic creator, and podcaster whose work can be found at:
Kevin Cross.net
Big Illustration Party Time Podcast

And you're probably already familiar with my work here at Branded.

If you have any questions, comments, or heck, even complaints, you can drop us a line at Saturday Supercast!

You can find the direct download for the episode here, or you can subscribe to the show via iTunes and find out more over at Sugary Serials.

Also, the Saturday Supercast is on Facebook and Twitter, so if you'd like to stay up to date with the goings on at the podcast, go on over and become a fan or follow us. You won't be sorry!

]]> Saturday Supercast Podcast Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:33:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=520996# Shawn Michael Robare No I wonder how much Drew Struzan would charge for doing some Branded in the 80s artwork... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=520042# a really funny write up of horrible DVD cover art over at his blog, Cavalcade of Awesome, and then yesterday Ben Spencer posted one hell of a wish list item over at Nerd City, the original painting for the Masters of the Universe movie poster (only $100,000 for anyone interested in becoming Ben's sugar daddyâ) On the one hand you've got some horrendous examples of Photoshop "skillz" gone awry, and on the other a breath taking example of gorgeous poster art for a movie that, love it or hate it probably doesn't deserve this sort of treatment.

Something that kind of flabbergasts me is the uncanny way studios utilize their marketing and advertising budgets these days. Untold millions are spent on god-awful billboards, websites, and trailers that tend to look like the cumulative work of a 1,000 monkeys sitting at macbooks with way too much time to play with Photoshop or Illustrator. Most movies end up with posters that look like either a horrible cut & paste/floating head job, or an overly rendered nightmare that looks like a cut scene from a video game. None of them are memorable (at least not in a good way), and most betray the tone and look of the flick in question.

I'm going too have to play that doddering old fool who is always pointing to the past and proclaiming how much better it was to pay a half penny for a candy bar and $3 for a down-payment on a house for a second. Growing up during the 80s video boom I can honestly attest to the power of well done cover artwork. Walking up and down the rows in my local mom & pop shop, I'd be in a trance scanning over the luscious VHS boxes, lulled into renting utter pieces of crap based on these amazing pieces of art. To this day I still think about some of these movies and I can't believe that studios donât tap into this process anymore.

Anyway, enough grampa ranting, what I really wanted to get to was one of my favorite 80s era movie poster artists, Drew Struzan. Mr. Struzan is probably the most famous of his ilk, and undoubtedly he's recognized for his poster work on films such as the Back to the Future Trilogy, the Indiana Jones flicks, and more recently the first couple of Harry Potter movies, Hellboy, and the Star Wars prequels. But that's just a taste of his huge body of work. Stumbling on his website via the Masters of the Universe poster from above, I was reacquainted with just how much I love this guy's work. I was surprised that there were a few flicks I didn't even realize he did work for, like Better Off Deadâ

I missed out on this great Savage Steve Holland flick in the theater and I ended up watching it a million times on cable growing up, so I never really needed to rent it. Was this piece used on the original VHS or posters, because I never knew it existed? On the other hand, there are plenty of flicks that I have always loved the poster artwork for, I just didn't realize it was Mr. Struzan's work like Big Trouble in Little Chinaâ

âthe insane comedy racing classic the Cannonball Runâ

âor a film that I didn't see for the first time until the last couple of years, Adventures in Babysittingâ

These are the kinds of movie posters that I would buy, frame and hang on the wall. I couldn't imagine doing that with any of the films I've seen in the past 15 years, and it's not for a lesser love of the movies or because I'm just infatuated with flicks from my childhood, they just have terrible posters.

One of my favorite pieces that Struzan has worked on is the poster for the Goonies. Though I haven't seen this on a VHS copy, I have seen the artwork used on the original soundtrack album release and immediately fell in love with itâ

Struzan's ability to capture actor's likenesses without leaving them feeling stiff and too photorealistic, while also not dipping to far into the well of caricature, is just mind blowing to me. He's also really adept at knowing how to make a floating head work, not to mention creating conceptual pieces that completely get across the tone and feel of a film while having a lot of fun.

Anyway, I highly suggest taking a few minutes to browse through his super awesome commercial portfolio where you'll find work for such flicks as Batteries Not Included*, An American Tail, Ducktales: Secret of the Lost Lamp, the Muppet Movie, the Great Muppet Caper, Harry and the Hendersons, Johnny Dangerously, Ladyhawk, Police Academy (Part 1, 3, and my favorite Part 4: Citizens on Patrol), Return to Oz (as well as some alternate poster art), Three O'Clock High, and even the short lived 90s cartoon and toy line the Skeleton Warriors, and that's just naming a few!

He even has a section up featuring unused, alternative and conceptual pieces for flicks like Back to the Future (Parts 1 & 2), Big Trouble in Little China, Howard the Duck (alternate stuff as well), and the Money Pit. Now if I only had a sugar daddy of my own I could get some of this fine work for my own wallsâ

]]> Movies Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:14:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=520042# Shawn Michael Robare No What can you really say about a film that involves a nerd deflowering a bowling ball that I didn't already say with this title? http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=518788#

I've been thinking a lot about 70s/80s teen sex comedies lately in the wake of Severin Films' announcement they'll be releasing the seminal (in every sense of the word) comedy flick Screwballs on DVD. By the way, the disc comes out today and you can order your copy by clicking on the cover belowâ

Anyway, back to pondering teen sex comedies. It's really surprising to me how often films don't deliver on what they promise in terms of content, in particular genre flicks. I can't count how many times I've rented a horror flick that wasn't scary, gory, or disturbing, or a comedy that just didn't try that hard for laughs. This past year a friend and I sat down and watched a ton of 80s comedies both in the hopes of reliving some nostalgia and to finally expose my friend to the original R-rated bits and pieces that he never got a chance to see growing up as a kid. My experience to most of the films we watched came through either renting them on video or catching them in the wee hours of the morning on HBO or Cinemax. My friend on the other hand grew up a bit more sheltered and wasn't allowed to watch most of them, and the stuff that he did catch was on basic cable over the years so he has felt like he's really missed out on the raunchy adult humor.

Turns out he didn't miss all that much. Even flicks like Porky's really don't have all that much in the way of nudity or language so bad that it'd make his grandma blush. Granted Porky's was the brainchild of Bob Clark, the same guy who brought us the beloved classic A Christmas Story, but he was also the guy that brought us Black Christmas, so we weren't sure what to expect. Overall, after watching flicks like Fast Times at Ridgemount High, Meatballs, Sixteen Candles, Revenge of the Nerds, and Risky Business my friend was starting to feel like he hadn't missed that much at all. Personally, I seem to have memories of more raunch in my 80s comedies, though there are a lot of flicks that I watched back in the 80s that we didn't revisit and were more on the periphery in terms of tasteful content like Hot Dog, Kentucky Fried Movie, Class (which seemed really dirty at the time), and the various academy (Police or Screwball) and school movies (Rock 'n Roll High, or Ski), all the stuff that I'd catch for years on USA Up All Night with Rhonda Shear or Gilbert Godfried.

Sure, most of these films have some rude language and a jiggling pair of boobs here and there, but none of them feel like they're delivering on their potential, not at least in the way that a lot of exploitation flicks did in 60s and 70s. When you sit down and watch a Herschel Gordon Lewis film like Blood Feast or Two Thousand Maniacs, you get what you pay for. When you watch a Jack Hill flick like the Big Bird Cage, Foxy Brown or Switchblade Sisters, you get plenty of violence, language and T&A. So with the 80s teen sex comedies, it sad that for the most part you really don't get more raunch. That isn't to say that I don't like John Hughes (the Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink) and Savage Steve Holland (Better Off Dead, One Crazy Summer) flicks, just that there was a relatively untapped market for making flicks that were a bit more visceral.

Well, getting back to the reason for this post, I have to say that I never saw Screwballs back in the 80s and it was one heck of an oversight. Screwballs is to teen sex comedies what Last House on the Left is to horror. There are more naked girls, goofy horny guys, and inappropriate jokes than in most other 80s films combined. In fact the raunch reaches a level of slapstick that is more on par with the feel of a crazy 30s era gag-a-second Fleischer cartoon than an 80s comedy. The flick was also produced under Roger Corman, which might have something to do with its level of debauchery (but in the best sense of the word.)

If you haven't seen it, the basic gist of the film revolves around a pact made by five senior guys who all have a beef with one girl, the ultimately virginal Purity Busch. She's either gotten them in trouble or lead them on and the guys decide that by the end of the school year they'll either get to see her "goods" and score, or die trying. Though the film should be qualified as terrible, where plot is really secondary to the mass amount of gags in the film, the set dressing keeps bouncing between the 50, 60s, 70s, and the 80s, and with acting that for the most part is insanely bad, it's still pretty great. It's almost like watching a live action adaptation of a much dirtier version of MAD magazine that still manages to be funny. Between sessions of strip bowling, insane make-out sessions a the drive-in, freshman breast exams, trips to the strip club (with a guest appearance by Russ Meyer star Raven DeLaCroix), ornate brainwashing attempts involving an giant fake hot dog, insanely inappropriate cheerleading practice in bikinis, and a milf mom who is playing the cougar to the point of being overdubbed with animal growls, you'll never be bored.

I can honestly say that I was blown away by this long-overdue-on-DVD gem, for however contrived and clichÃ a statement like that can be. I have to give a hand to Severin Films for taking the time and effort to restore this film (as well as stuff like the original Inglorious Bastards.) The DVD looks pretty good for a lowbudget early 80s film like this, and has a nice set of special features including a commentary track as well as surprisingly insightful interviews with the director Rafal Zielinski and cast (there are clips with the director and some of the actors online.) I don't know what more I can say except that, again, the DVD is available to purchase as of today. If you're a fan of goofy 80s comedies and boobs, than this is highly recommended...
]]> Buried in DVDs Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:21:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=518788# Shawn Michael Robare No Peel Here #90: I'm only pretending these stickers are gay so my webhosting company doesn't evict me... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=518512#

Before I get into today's Peel Here column proper, I wanted to take a second to let everyone know that I've made it ten million times easier to browse through the archives of this column. In the past the Peel Here banners above and to the left in the sidebar have pulled up all of the previous columns on one page that took roughly eleven months, 7 days, and three hours to load. Not anymore. Now these banners will whisk you away to a brand new single portal page that's split up into volumes (each 12 columns get their own volume.) So if you really wanted to take a second look at those C.H.i.P.s stickers, or you missed out on the 7-Eleven Rock Coins, you can now just browse through the various volumes (each of which list the posts in that volume.) You can either click on a volume to be taken to a page with all twelve of those posts, or you can click on the individual column you want to see.

I recently rearranged my archive of Cartoon Commentary! columns in a similar fashion so 90% of Branded is very accessible via the sidebar banners now. It's a small step, but I hope it improves the browsing of the site. Someday I'll get Libsyn to include the "next-page, previous-page" functionality in their blogging engine, but I'm not holding my breathâ

Anyway, enough about site maintenance, you came here for some nostalgia right? Well let me present a fun set of Topps cards originally distributed back in 1978, the almost complete (I'm missing sticker #10) Three's Company sticker setâ

This set is sort of a weird duck. Like most Topps stickers (and subsets to regular card series) this set comes in a multiple of eleven with 44 total cards. This is a little weird as the majority of the Topps licensed stickers at this time came in the form of 22 count subsets of a much larger series of bubblegum cards. This Three's Company set is just stickers, there aren't any regular cards. From what I can tell, Topps really didn't start doing these 44 card sticker sets until the mid 80s with the Supergirl, 21 Jump Street, Return to Oz and Little Shop of Horrors sets (not to mention the various rock music sets featuring Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, Duran Duran, and Menudo.) Also, aside from a handful of card-backs illustrating how to peel off the sticker, the majority of the set has blank white backs. I have seen other blank backed sets, like the Incredible Hulk or Mork and Mindy, as well as sets that just had ads on the card-backs like the stickers for the first Alien flick. There are some variations of these stickers though, that include at least one set of puzzle backs that form to make a 15-card poster of Suzanne Sommers.

Here's what the poster looked likeâ

Anyway, as far as the stickers themselves go, I have to say that I think it weird that so many sitcoms had this sort of merchandising in the 70s and 80s. I can clearly see how popular some of these shows were, but it seems like there's a big leap between trying your best to catch the most recent episode of the show for a few laughs and running out to your local 7-Eleven to pick up 10 to 15 packs of cards in hopes of completing a set of Three's Company stickers. It's really the hobby of the young or borderline obsessed, and again, I have a hard time seeing kids really getting into these stickers, even if they do love the show. It seems like an impulse, single pack purchase. Out of five stickers you're bound to get at least one Suzanne Sommers and John Ritter headshot sticker, and then you're done. Alright, maybe some kids were looking for a Joyce Dewitt, but seriously at the time, who was pining for a Mr. Roper sticker? I can totally see the beauty in the sticker now, from a distance though.

Maybe I'm having a hard time getting my brain around this set because my exposure to the series was really limited as a kid. The only time I ever really got a chance to watch it was on those rare occasions when I was out sick from school. The show, along with other staples like C.H.i.P.s, Gomer Pyle USMC, Bewitched, and I Dream of Jeanie, primarily played in re-run syndication during the mid-afternoons in my area. Just hearing the opening bars of the theme song makes my stomach feel a bit queasy since I was usually sick when I saw the showâ

I wonder whose job it was to come up with the flavor text on these stickers? It's pretty atrocious stuff. I noticed something similar with the Mork and Mindy card set (which had totally non-show related speech and thought bubbles added to all of the screencaps.)

]]> Peel Here Volume 8 Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:21:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=518512# Shawn Michael Robare No Cartoon Commentary, a look at the 1st episode of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=517695#

A quick note on the organization of the Cartoon Commentary! columns here at Branded in the 80s. I've been slowly tweaking the tags and archiving of some of the sections on the site for awhile to try and make this beast a little easier to navigate (since the engine Branded is built on doesn't support a lot of the nicer things like next page functionality, or multiple tags.) Anyway, I wanted to take a second and point to a new portal page I set up for Cartoon Commentary! which divides the articles I've written by cartoon series as well as individual posts. By clicking on the banner above, or the one in the sidebar to the left you can reach the portal page where you can choose to view all posts on a particular series or the specific episodes from that series. It should make navigating the site easier so you wouldn't have to load every single Commentary post on one page. Next up, wrangling the best that is Peel Here, but that's for another dayâ

Anyway, in honor of the release of episode 21 of the Saturday Supercast (where I and co-hosts Kevin Cross and Jerzy Drozd deconstruct the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon series) I thought I'd take a closer look at the first broadcast episode of He-Man, the Robby London penned Diamond Ray of Disappearance which had its debut on September 5th, 1983.

As we mentioned in episode 21 of the Supercast, Diamond Ray of Disappearance does a pretty good job of setting the stage for the Masters of the Universe series. Though it's not an origin episode (not many 80s cartoons had the foresight to set up a continuity), it does spend some time introducing a lot of the main characters that populate the world of Eternia, as well as giving a pretty good overview of what He-Man is capable of. One subtle aspect to this episodeâs introductory nature is the opening title card screen that was chosen for this first episode, a shot from space of the planet and its main continents. You can get a general gist of the main body of lush green jungle-like land, with the icy mountains to the north, a treacherous desert to the south and to the east, which separates the peaceful region with the fire and brimstone of the region that Skeletor overseas to the far east.

As far as the episode proper, it opens on a shot of the imposing Snake Mountain, which again is a subtle way of starting off the series by introducing the main struggle. I mean, we're already watching a show called He-Man, and in the opening credits we get the point by point on Adam and his quest, so it makes sense to get into the nitty gritty with Skeletor summoning his minions. What I really dig about this sequence is that it does a fairly good job of setting the tone for some of the dark fantasy that makes up the periphery of the show. Between Snake Mountain, and the various spikes and skeletal accoutrements that make up the dÃcor, it sets a pretty creepy tone for a kids show. Some of the imagery is downright Giger-esque in design, and Skeletor's throne of bone is only slightly removed from the seriously f-ed up human and animal bone furniture in the Texas chainsaw Massacre flick (or for that matter TCMâs real world influences of Ed Gein and Ilse Koch.) Granted skeletal imagery and evil in fantasy worlds sort of go hand in hand and could be viewed as pretty tame, but it does has some real world connotations that can get pretty heady, especially for kids. I just think it was a brave move on Filmation's part.

As Skeletor calls his henchmen to his side to explain his nefarious plot with the Diamond Ray, I always thought it was pretty hilarious that he calls Merman who just happens to be in the middle of wrestling a huge aquatic monsterâ

Another thing that jumped out at me in this opening sequence is some of the Filmation visual trademarks that really define the look and feel of the cartoon. Because of the limited budget the studio had to produce 65 syndicated episodes of He-Man, there was a lot of limited animation and an extensive collection of stock sequences were devised, so that each episode's new animation burden could be whittled away. One of these stock sequences features Skeletor in a fit of megalomaniacal fist pumping. It really is sort of a strange shot, as the edit sort of cuts to an aside soliloquy featuring a mimed or laughing punctuation from the evil leader.

I also thought it was interesting in the first battle sequence that both factions have their own Sky Sleds, though in slightly differing colorsâ

As a kid I never thought twice about this, but from the perspective of a grown man this seems very odd. I mean I just always sort of thought that each side designed and constructed their own vehicles. I know Man-At-Arms is always building and tinkering for the good guys. Maybe Tri-Klops is doing the same for Skeletor? Anyway, because their both using the same sleds (well except that the evil ones have fangs and the good have molded ears on the gargoyle head that acts as a ram), it gives the impression that there is a third party out there designing vehicles and weaponry for the battle waging across Eternia.

Also, a quick note on Trap Jaw's character design from toy to cartoon. I thought it was cute that Filmation decided to keep his little hook/eyelet on the top of his helmet, a feature from the toy that let him slide down a zip-line, but in the show is just ornamental. I've talked before about the differences in cartoon and toy design, and it's always fun to see stuff that should be exclusive to the toys end up in either packaging art or the final cartoon versions. I mean typically these little things don't have to translate from toy design to other media, I mean not that many kids thought too hard about what happens to Optimus Prime's trailer section when he transforms in the showâ

It's also fun to see a little bit of Star Wars influence on the cartoon. I mean it came out right in the middle of the hype for Return of the Jedi, so it's not surprising, but even so it's fun to see Man-At-Arms wielding a makeshift lightsaberâ

I also love the inclusion of Skeletor's Battle Robots to the show's list of villains. Because Lou Scheimer and Hal Sutherland had such strong ideas on the virtual non-violence in the action of the He-Man cartoon, these robots become yet another in a very long line of violence-friendly punching bagsâ

There was also a scene with the Sorceress' magic mirror that I thought was neat for a couple of reasons. One, there is another Filmation visual, a shot framed by He-Man's feet in the foreground which is just really dynamic. You see this a lot in Filmation's cartoon work, these interesting shot set-ups and uber weird camera angles (either extreme worm's-eye-view or security camera, high up in a corner shots.) Secondly we get to see the Filmation designer's mind's eye view of what it would look like inside this magical universe, which is apparently a world of Atari?!?

The last thing that really jumped out at me in this episode (that we don't cover in episode 21 of the Saturday Supercast) is an early Orko sequence that has him getting in on the final battle a bit. There are a lot of character match-ups in this series and this episode in particular. In fact the set of evil and good characters is almost symmetrical. He-Man offsets Skeletor, Evil-Lyn the Sorceress, Man-At-Arms and Tri-Klops, Ram-Man and Beastman, Stratos and Trap Jaw, Man-E-Faces and Merman, not to mention Cringer/Battle Cat and Panthor. Orko though is sort of the odd man out. There really isn't a reoccurring character that fits Orko's bill on the evil side, his bumbling ways are only sort of echoed in Merman and Beastman. He's more of an in for the children as viewers, giving them a character to latch onto, one who is a guide to the world of Eternia.

So it's strange to see him step into the battle at the end of the episode and spin Tri-Klops' head silly. It's sort of out-of-character for Orko, but fun none-the-less.

Again, to listen to Jerzy, Kevin and I wax nostalgic on this episode of He-Man you can download Episode 21 of the Saturday Supercast from the Sugary Serials site (or directly here), or you can subscribe to the show through iTunes. We're really proud of how the podcast is developing so far and we can't wait to tackle more cartoons in future episodes. We've got a lot of big plansâ

]]> He-Man Cartoon Commentary Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:43:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=517695# Shawn Michael Robare No John Cawley will help you Get Animated! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=516752#

All around great guy, plastic robot junkie, and iron-fist ruler of the site Please Save Me Robots (now in it's apocalypse edition) Esteban recently turned me on to John Cawley's website where he's selling issues of his vintage fan/professional magazine on 80s animation called Get Animated!, which he originally put together and edited between 1984 and 1986. The zine includes articles written by fans and pros alike and you can pick up copies of the six available issues on a nice CD-rom for $12. This is the sort of thing that I've been dying to find for a long time. There really weren't any magazines covering animation during the 70s and 80s, and the ones that were like Starlog, Famous Monsters, and the like really only did the odd review here and there and almost entirely ignored stuff geared towards television.

Get Animated! is the closest thing I've found that would resemble what it would have been like if the internet and the blogosphere had been around at the time. The whole zine movement of the 60s through the 90s is pretty much a mystery to me, and I still haven't found a very good "in" on where to find back issues or scans. These are the sort of fan-run projects that deflated when the internet really caught on, and a lot of these guys seemed to pack it in instead of making a splash online with their projects.

Anyway, back to GA!, I've been reading through the issues and there's a ton of great content, not to mention an articulate peek at the perspective of animations fans during the era that I love so much. I was only seven when the first issue of GA! Started making the rounds, so I was obviously too young to appreciate training a critical eye on shows like He-Man, Robotech and the Mighty Orbots, but thankfully there were guys like Cawley who were.

Speaking of Robotech, in that first issue there's an interesting piece on the impending reworking of Macross for an American audience. It covers Harmony Gold's two pronged plan of attack, hoping to establish a fan base for Japanese animation in the States by releasing Macross in two packages. The first would be a faithful direct to video English dub of the first three series episodes edited into a film with the violence intact, but removing a lot of the repeated sequences. The plan was to release the entire series edited into seven feature length films, direct to VHS, keeping the tone and story as faithful as possible. These releases hinged on the success of the first release though. The second prong of the attack would be a more kid-friendly re-dub of the series repackaged as Robotech, which we of course got and it was a modest success. Because of the confusing and mired history of home video releases of Macross, I can't say for sure, but my guess is that the original faithful dubs weren't a success because I don't remember getting introduced to Macross proper until the mid to late 90s. It's interesting to see that Harmony Gold had the best of intentions while importing the show.

This is the sort of perspective I'm really thankful was recorded with a zine like Get Animated!, and even though it only last for six short issues, it's still a treasure trove of information for an animation buff into 80s cartoons. There's also articles on He-Man, the Mighty Orbots, the Muppet Babies, Cosgrove Hall and Danger Mouse, as well as great studio guides, reviews, editorials and vintage news. I can't recommend these enoughâ

Again, head on over to Cawley's site where you can find these as well as some other great animation treasures like the text to a book he wrote on the Don Bluth company.

]]> Cartoons Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:11:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=516752# Shawn Michael Robare No Did you ever notice... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=516404# Visitors from the V mini series. Anyway, in the cartoon the most you'd get would be the trooper's matching uniforms and some of the megalomaniacal antics of Destro and Cobra Commander, but for the most part cobra has its own feel. With the action figures, because of the varied character designs, you really didn't get that fascist army vibe. In the early comics though, there are some tell tale signs that the Nazis were a huge influence, in particular in panels like thisâ

âwith a trooper giving the all too familiar salute to Cobra Commander. I found that kind of weird.

The other thing that struck me was the more dynamic use of the character designs. When Hasbro set out to mold the line of 3.75" action figures in the early 80s, they chose to make them more visually interesting by adding guns, grenades, and other stuff to the outfits. These accouterments weren't removable of course, and it lead to some intentional ignorance when playing with the figures in the sandbox. I mean Snake Eyes (version 3) isn't going to pull those blades off his chest and chop his way out when captured. For me it pretty much gets to the point where some of these accouterments lose all of their meaning. Take the stars on Scarlett's gloves. Are these patriotic patches or shuriken (ninja stars)?

Well, the comics certainly have an answer for thisâ

Anyway, just some food for thought when it comes to the various incarnations of one of my favorite properties from the 80sâ ]]> general Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:12:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=516404# Shawn Michael Robare No Peel Here #89: Great Job Kid! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=516001#

My wife has been working diligently over the past couple of weeks on a couple of secret stuffed-animal/plush projects, and I've just been so proud of her. She's really making strides with each project and I'm so glad that she's also challenging herself with each new outing. Anyway, though I can't really get into what these new awesome plushes are, I can take a second to point to her site at demonals.com.

In honor of her plugging away and doing some fine work, I thought I'd break out a mini collection of "Good Job" achievement-style sticker sheets that have been sitting in the drawer for awhile now. These are all from the late 70s early 80s and come from the collection of Jerzy and Anne Drozd, who graciously sent them my way (along with a nifty photo book sticker collection that I need to scan.)

This first set of stickers looks the oldest to me, at least design and art-wise, though it wasn't labeled with a date, just the company, Fassonâ

I get that the designers were going for a food/achievement theme, but a couple of these just don't quite hit the mark, at least not in a good way. Squeeze Me and Delicious just seem a tad inappropriate for doing well on grade school homework. Maybe it's just meâ

This next sheet, released by Hallmark in 1980 is probably my favorite. There's just something really awesome about the thick colored border around early 80s stickers that just sends me back in time (much like the portrait stickers that come in various Topps brand sticker subsets like the Incredible Hulk, Buck Rogers, or Howard the Duck.)

These are also nice for covering the gamut between obvious (the award ribbons), cute (tree-mendous), awesome (dynamite), and subtle and a little odd in the metaphor department (keep it up with the suspendersâ)

The last sheet was produced in 1982 by Dennison.

A little bit on the plain side, though I really dig the outstanding sticker for its intergalactic imagery. I wonder if the teacher or parent that used these back in the day wondered if they should hold the middle strip of stickers for the really good work considering there weren't duplicates? I know I would have... ]]> Peel Here Volume 8 Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:38:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=516001# Shawn Michael Robare No Saturday Supercast Episode 21: Deconstructing He-Man and the Masters of the Universe! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=515219#

The Saturday Supercast is back this week with our 3rd cartoon deconstruction episode. This episode is part one of a two part discussion on the landmark 80s cartoon series He-Man and the Masters of the universe. Join me and my co-hosts, Jerzy Drozd and Kevin Cross as we dig into the He-Man cartoon, trying to figure out why we like it so much, what could be better, and why the show was so important to an entire decade of animation that followed in it's wake.

For those who may not know, He-Man and his friends, the Sorceress, Man-At-Arms, Teela, Ram Man, Orko, and Stratos wage an endless battle defending Castle Greyskull and the planet Eternia against Skeletor and his evil warriors, Beastman, Evil-Lyn, Trap Jaw, Merman, and Triklops, who want to conquer and rule the world. The series, produced by Filmation Studios in 1983, was a landmark cartoon mixing fantasy and science-fiction, reinvigorating children's television with a sense of action and adventure, as well as helping to instill a solid sense of morality for an entire generation of kids. Masters of the Universe was also one of the first series to break through the governmental ban on interweaving existing toy lines and cartoons, not to mention paving the way for first-run syndicated animation, defining the distribution format for shows through the 80s and 90s.

Join us as we deconstruct the overall series, and dive into three of our favorite episodes:

The Diamond Ray of Disappearanceâ

Teelaâs Questâ

and The Wizard of Stone Mountainâ

In this episode we touch on a lot of the talent that made He-Man possible including series producers Lou Schiemer (who also voiced half of the cast of characters including Orko and Stratos) and Hal Sutherland, voice actors John Erwin (He-Man and Beastman), Alan Openheimer (Skeletor and Man-At-Arms), and Linda Gary (Teela, the Sorceress and Evil-Lyn), and some of the writers, directors and artists such as Paul Dini, Larry DiTillio, Tom Sito, Bruce Timm, Robby London, and Michael Reaves.

We also discuss the Masters of the Universe toy line, it's inventor Roger Sweet, and its packaging, as well as Star Wars, Clash of the Titans, and Space 1999 toys, getting toys when you're home sick as a kid, Jack Kirby's 4th World, the MOTU mini-comics, rotoscoped animation, Barbarian fantasies in the early 80s (including Thundarr and Conan), the 2002 Mike Young Productions He-Man cartoon, how easy and boring it is to make fun of the He-Man cartoon, alter egos and how Prince Adam is an important aspect to the ideal of the He-Man mythos, the myth of Robert Johnson and his fight against the devil, Andy Mangel's excellent special features on the BCI Eclipse editions of the original He-Man cartoon on DVD, and our friends at the Horror Etc. podcast.

If you're curious about watching this great series you can purchase a copy of season 1-part 1, or season 1-part 2 at Amazon, or head on over to Hulu where you can watch 13 of the 1st season episodes for free.

As for us, well you can find more of Jerzy's work at:
Make Like a Tree Comics
jdrozd.blogspot.com
Art & Story Podcast

Kevin is freelance illustrator, comic creator, and podcaster whose work can be found at:
Kevin Cross.net
Big Illustration Party Time Podcast

âand well I'm Shawn obviously, and if you're reading this than I guess you know my work can be found at Branded in the 80s.com.

We're keeping the podcast's feed over at the Sugary Serials site, so if you want to subscribe to it, you can do it over there or you can use this link. I'm really excited to be podcasting again, and can't wait to dig into more cartoons. So head on over to the Sugary Serials and check out episode 21 of the Saturday Supercast today or you can download it by right clicking and selecting save here!

If you have any questions, comments, or heck, even complaints, you can drop us a line at Saturday Supercast!

]]> Saturday Supercast Podcast Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:41:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=515219# Shawn Michael Robare No Peel Here #88: One of my Holy Grail Items, Prismatic Foil Horror Stickers! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=514419#

I've talked before about some of the Holy Grail items that I was looking to procure for my sticker collection; stuff that is either wicked expensive for some odd reason (Dune sticker cards from Fleer or the 1980 series of Topps Monstickers, puffy sticker versions of the Ugly stickers they did in the late 60s early 70s), or stickers that just shouldn't exist anymore. It would be awesome to find books of S&H green stamps from the 70s or 80s, collections of produce or grocery store specific stickers, and some off-brand vending machine stickers from the 80s. With the Dune and Monstickers, it's only a matter of time before a stash is found and it devalues the current crop on the secondary market, but the others just shouldn't exist. I mean, people didn't collect green stamps; they either tossed them when the first got them for grocery shopping or they used them. For some odd reason there are a lot of collections of produce stickers floating around, but they're typically from other countries, so they hold little to no nostalgic value for a guy like me.

As for vending machine stickers, well we've all seen these in Pizza Huts or near the check-out counter at your local grocery store. Plop down 25 to 50 cents and you get one sticker in a little cardboard sleeve. These are beyond disposable. First off, they're typically off-brand or bootleg, and secondly, you never get what you want. When spying that badass Wolverine or Transformers sticker in the little window that you want, the machine suckers you in, and 50 cents later you've got a smiley face in a scuba mask or a Britney spears sticker. And that little girl that wanted that smiley face or Britney sticker, she got the prismatic Decpticon symbol, pitched a little fit, and threw it away. I'm positive that 90% of these get thrown away or used immediately with next to none getting socked away for later use.

Well, you can't discount these things. That 10% that's floating around out there lost to space and time? It'll eventually turn up. Me, I've been waiting for a specific series of vending machine stickers to pop up for years, ever since I got one back in 1990. Our family was in the process of moving from Florida to New Hampshire, and in some non-descript side of the highway fast food strip mall (you know the kind, it's like a food court with three or four different places like KFC, Carl's Jr. and a Roy Rogers all in one building) I found a sticker machine with a set of the coolest horror movie stickers. I could only scrounge together enough change to get one sticker, but I loved it. It was from the movie Nightbreed, one of my all-time favorite horror flicks. I stuck it to a little bookshelf that was over-packed with Stephen King and Clive Barker books, a shelf that was thrown away sometime in the late 90s when I left home. I've coveted that sticker, and the rest of the set for years. Thank god for ebay, as I finally found a handful of stickersâ

All in all, though it's only five of the stickers from a set of 40 or 50, it's a pretty nice haul covering some of my favorite horror series, Nightmare on Elm Street, the Friday series, Halloween and the Howling. I'm not all that into Vamp, though I love Robert Rusler in it (and in Nightmare on elm Street 2, Weird Science, and Thrashinâ.) In doing some research I stumbled upon a nice collection of these on Dr. Death-Threads' Headstone City blog. He shared his collection over a few posts (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.) In part one you can see the Nightbreed sticker I loved so much. Personally, it's at time like this that I think the internet truly shines, as I can sit here and marvel at stickers that just shouldn't exist, and throw in my own rescued treasures as well. I'm having a Tiny Tim moment (Christmas Carol, not the falsetto-singing ukulele-playing wonder.)

Also, I typically hold this sort of horror content aside for the Halloween season, but I'm sort of putting this edition of Peel Here out as a initial call to arms. The season of the witch, warlock, vampire, pumpkinhead, werewolf, creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein's Monster and what-ever-creep-you-love is just around the corner. I know a whole heck of a lot of people participated in the loosely grouped Countdown to Halloween blog-a-thon last year and it's looking like a whole lot more might be on board this year. Well, I'm up for it again having already picked out a theme and started working feverishly on the content I'm planning on sharing. If you're curious what the past years have been like, you can click on the Halloween Archive to the left, the orange banner with King Kong, and flip through my last three years worth of material. You'll also find a plethora of links to other sites. It's like opening a Pandora's box of spookiness.

Anyway, if you dug these stickers, you might also enjoy the following posts:

Crestwood House Monster Books Part 1
Crestwood house Monster Books Part 2
80s era Ideal Marvel Comics Collections

]]> Peel Here Volume 8 Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:10:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=514419# Shawn Michael Robare No Review of the Mill Creek Dungeons and Dragons the Complete Series on DVD... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=514077#

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Mill Creek Entertainment has picked up the license to the 1983 Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, one of my favorite mainstays from Saturday Mornings as a kid. The series was originally released by BCI Eclipse back in January of 2007, but has since gone out of print due to Navarre shuttering the BCI Ink & Paint imprint. I was a huge fan of that original set as it was one of the first bright examples of an 80s cartoon property handled with love and care, and one that wouldn't make a permanent dent in your pocketbook. As much as I hate seeing all the BCI titles starting to drop off into OOP obscurity, I was really glad to hear that Mill Creek was picking up some of the pieces.

That being said, I was a little skeptical of what this would mean for the series being kept alive on DVD. Mill Creek is most known for distributing public domain material in via large box sets like those 50 movie packs (featuring horror and westerns to name a couple) as well as the 150 packs of old public domain cartoons. The quality of these public domain titles ranges from medium to poor for the most part and the sets are geared more towards introducing one to obscure nostalgic fare than being a source for nice copies of these movies and cartoons. From time to time Mill Creek will also take on a licensed property like their releases of the Teddy Ruxpin series. I picked up one of the TR sets in a dump bin for about $5 and that's pretty much all it was worth. The video and audio quality of the show left a lot to be desired, but the price was right and honestly that's what Mill Creek is all about. So how would the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon fare?

Well, I just received an advance copy of the Complete series set, which will hit store shelves on August 25th, and should be retailing for between $13 to $24 depending on where you find it. They're also releasing an entry level disc which features only the first nine episodes of the cartoon in tandem which should retail for around $10. After cracking open the set I was both pleasantly surprised and a little bit let down with some quality issues that should have been expectedâ

First off, the bad. The main issue I have with this set is the packaging. It's cheap, really cheap and it's sort of a shame. I guess I was spoiled by the nice embossed sturdy box that the BCI release came in, the beautiful fold out digi-pak that housed the discs, and the included episode guide. Compared to that the Mill Creek release is about as bare bones as you can getâ

This set features all 27 episodes spread over 3 single sided discs which are housed in black paper sleeves that sort of snap into the plastic case. Granted it keeps the DVDs sturdy enough, but I can imagine over time these paper sleeves are going to get worn and torn up. Besides this, it's just an annoying to have to pull out the sleeves like this and fish out the disc. DVD packaging companies are doing wondrous things with minimal packaging these days, and a case like the ones used for the Family Ties releases (that has spindles on either side of the inner case and a flap with a DVD spindle in the middle) would have been a vast improvement at very little increase in costâ

As for the DVDs themselves, they're not bad. First off, all of the special features from the BCI edition have been stripped. There is nothing extra on this set, it's just the episodes. Like I mentioned above, there are a total of 27 episodes, 9 to a disc, and the DVDs default into the episode selection screen for each discâ

The most surprising aspect of this set is how well the quality of the actual video and audio held up. The BCI discs had up to 7 episodes per disc, so there wasn't a ton of added compression to fit a couple more on, especially considering that all the fancy frills were discarded. To my eyes, the quality is almost a direct transfer. As far as the audio goes, it's a little bit quieter on the Mill Creek DVDs, with the background music suffering the most, but it's certainly not to a level that it's ever distracting. With the video, the Mill Creek version isn't quite as rich, but the difference is really subtle. Here are some screen to screen comparisons. The Mill Creek version is on the left, and the BCI on the rightâ

Mill Creek BCI

Mill Creek BCI

All in all, if you're more interested in just getting a decente copy of all the episodes, I'd highly suggest picking up a copy of the new Mill Creek set. It's a little shoddy on the packaging side, but for $13 on Amazon right now it's one hell of a deal. If you're more concerned with a nicer presentation and a great set of special features, than I suggest picking up one of the remaining BCI sets before they fall into seriously over-priced out of print obscurity. Amazon still has copies available for around $40.

As far as the cartoon itself, I still love it as much as ever and I'm glad to see it staying in print for a new generation. If you're interested, you can find my original review of the BCI set, as well as my expanded look at the first 13 episodes from my Cartoon Commentary! column by following these links:

Dungeons and Dragons Overview
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7
Episode 8
Episode 9
Episode 10
Episode 11
Episode 12
Episode 13

]]> Buried in DVDs Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:05:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=514077# Shawn Michael Robare No Cartoon Commentary! G.I. Joe Episode 5 A Stake in the Serpent's Heart http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=512266#

Finally getting around to finishing off the Cartoon Commentary! series on the 1st G.I. Joe mini series (A Real American Hero). This final episode, titled A Stake in the Serpent's Heart, was first broadcast on September 16th, 1983, and it was the last taste kids would get of the cartoon series until the following year when the second mini debuted. I've said this a number of times recently, but it bears repeating, these first five episodes go a long way in defining the series, and bowing only a week after the first syndicated episodes of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, it also helped to define the next decade of television animation. 1983 really was a banner year for action in cartoons as we also saw the release of Dungeons and Dragons on Saturday mornings, and between these three shows TV animation, at least when it came to action, was free for the first time in over a decade.

Granted, there were shows that flirted with action premises, Super Friends, Blackstar, the Lone Ranger, Thundarr, and Spiderman & His Amazing Friends just to name a few, but all of these shows were just not quite there in terms of bravery. Even He-Man, for its revolutionary first run syndication, and breaking the ice in terms of injecting action back into cartoons, was still taking a very moral stance on depicting violence. But G.I. Joe burst onto the scene like Duke amid a group of Cobra Troopers, punching and kicking everything in sight.

So, getting back to the episode at hand, the story picks up from the cliffhanger where Destro and Scarlett are plummeting in an escape pod towards certain doom. Of course, in the "coming next time on G.I. Joe" segment at the end of the previous episode we clearly see Scarlett running down a Cobra compound hallway, letting all the air out of the opening sequence of this episodeâ

Where this sequence fails as a cliffhanger, it succeeds in bookending the mini series as Destro leads Scarlett off of the escape pod at Cobra headquarters. Just like Duke, and with an impassioned fit of feminism from the writers, Scarlett proves herself to be quite the "Woman of Action" as she breaks free and takes on a platoon of Troopers. It's another example of that never-say-die attitude exhibited by the Joes, and a more subversive example of imbedding a sense of morality into the show. In He-Man for instance, this morality would be worn on the show's sleeve so to speak, and we'd more than likely be treated to an insightful yet, borderline obvious quote from a character. Here this sense of always doing the right thing and never giving up is written into the action. It's still a bit over the top, but much more natural.

One thing that I love about the Sunbow cartoons is their weird villain relationships. You tend to get a lot of characterization out of these villain characters while watching them bounce off each other. Like the Starscream/Megatron relationship in Transformers, there's a weird back and forth between Cobra Commander and Destro. Whereas Starscream always talks big, he usually backs down to Megatron (except when Megs is at his weakest in the 1986 Movie, but that's a story for another time.) On the one hand, Destro seems independent, the head of his own arms dealing organization, yet on the other he's always vying for and temporarily taking control of Cobra. Unlike Starscream though, Destro is the more physically imposing in his tÃte-Ã-tÃte, and he has no problem grabbing Cobra Commander by the lapels and shaking him until he stops hissing. In fact, it's almost a reversal of the Starscream/Megatron relationship. So in watching G.I. Joe you can see what it's like when a seemingly meeker character like Cobra Commander is in control. I think this is part of what makes these two cartoons so enjoyable, both for their own character building through bickering, and because the two series play off each other, filling in the gaps in storytelling opportunities.

Digging a bit deeper into this mutinous sequence where Destro assumes command of the M.A.S.S. device operation, there are a lot of interesting things going on visually. In the forefront is Cobra Commander's ease with flamboyance. He's sporting one heck of a pink cape in honor of his impending victory for starters. He's also decided to accessorize with a cane/scepter/staff sort of deal. I've always been baffled by this sort of prop. I mean, sure you can beat people over the head with it, but it's still sort of a weird thing to just have lying around. It's take a certain pretension or effort to carry a cane or scepter.

Also, there's a really nice shot after Cobra Commander throws his staff at Destro. The choice of having the sequence with Destro rising up and stalking back toward CC all reflected in Cobra Commander's face plate in extreme close-up is really well done. It's both visually stunning and portrays a lot of emotion. Even though you can't see his face, a shot like this just drips with fear, dread, and "Oh crap, I think I overstepped my boundsâ"

What's even more interesting to me is that even with some great visual direction going on in this episode, there are some tragic and weird missteps. In the next sequence, we see Scarlett thrown into a dungeon cell with Selena. The decision was to keep these scenes dark and ominous, but the animation took a turn for the downright bizarreâ

As you can see in the images above, at first the scene places out overly dark and gloomy which is really effective. I think it's also sort of neat as overbearing blacks and a heavy contrast are typically not used like this in cartoons. But as the scene progresses I think guys doing the actual ink and paint work went nuts with the concept. Having Scarlett's eyes and lips rendered as if they were lit by normal light when almost everything else is black or heavy grey is really weird and suspiciously cartoon-y (like in one of those lights-out sequences in a Looney Tunes short from the 50s.) This gets to a point where her one eye is illuminated and it's just weird, like it's pitch black on one half of her face and normally lit on the other. To top off the weirdness, the last little bit has a very more realistic take on the lighting with Scarlett in heavy shadow, but rendered with darker versions of the skin tones instead of solid blacks. It's almost as if the animation shop manager ended up walking the floor and saw all the guys splattering black all over the cels and he had to show them how to do it correctly.

I believe this sort of weird sequence is a result of sending the animation overseas to be rendered. It's not that Toei is lax with the work or that the animators are unskilled, in fact I believe just the opposite. It's more a matter of language and cultural barriers that muck up the communications. There's a great special feature on one of the King of the Hill DVD sets that sheds some light on this process. When the American animators are penciling the key scenes, and writing the notes for the overseas animators, they have to be painstakingly concise and clear about what they want. Any general note, say to keep the scene in shadow, without specifically describing how you want this shadow rendered will end up in a very obvious super deep shadow like we see above. I think this is one of the reasons we tend to not see as much dynamic animation (read, stuff with nice shading in the cels) coming out of shows that are designed in one location and shipped out to be animated in another. It takes much too long to annotate all the scenes, and it's much easier to keep things simple. Of course there are also monetary and time issues.

One thing this episode doesn't lack is several over the top moments that skirt that edge of realism and do a rather surprising job of ratcheting up the tension. At the end of the scene where Scarlett meets Selena, there is some kicking and breaking of furniture that is really pointless, if not fun. Then as the two are led out to water the slaves, there's a scene with a guard that looks like a mixture of a hangman/executioner from the medieval times, complete with black hood and bare chest (with some rather intimidatingly ripped abs.)

That's not to mention Destro's sudden insane fits of melodramatic and megalomaniacal laughter...

This all leads up to a sequence that is both very beautiful and very anticlimactic at the same time. As Cobra and the Joes raced all over existence looking for the crucial catalytic elements to power their respective M.A.S.S. devices, it all culminates in both machines firing beams of energy across the globe, meeting up in a colorful blaze of glory over New York City, and then that's pretty much the end of that plot. Sure, with tons of backlit animation it's really brilliantly animated, but it's a whole heck of a lot of build up for that to be the end, at least for the devices...

Of course, it's not the end of the episode or the mini series, but it's sort of an early climax that doesn't do a whole lot for me.

Getting back to some weirdness for a second, I mentioned in a couple of the last Cartoon Commentary! columns that there is a nice mix of current day and some sci-fi elements that make up the background elements of the show. It sort of places the series in an alternate 1980s reality that both dates it and defines it. One aspect to this is the weird medical contraptions that Doc has at his disposal. He'd already tried to help Duke remember where he'd been kidnapped to in an earlier episode, and for his second try he takes out all the stops and submerges Duke in what looks like one of those Bacta tanks from Star Warsâ

This contraption enables Doc to project images from Duke's mind onto a screen so they can sort through and find out where the Cobra base was. Along the way we get a nice montage on Duke's back-story, watching him fight off bullies that were plaguing the undefended, as well as where his physical and manly prowess comes from. Eventually we get to his Joe class ring and the fact that he left it with Selena. Good thing it can also work as a tracking device!

This gets into a little bit of the under-branding that the government (and Hasbro/Sunbow) has done with the G.I. Joe project. Whereas Cobra has its insignia, the Joes donât have a real identifying symbol outside of some text and the flag. Of course, the flag isn't as prominent as some of the Cobra iconography in the G.I. Joe cartoon, but the logo text does show up in the tiniest placesâ

This is an area that I think the new movie tried to remedy, yet at the same time it fails. The Joes have an eagle themed symbol in the new flick, and honestly, it just looks weird. I think I would have been happy with the American flag alone (though I know they're trying to make it a more international team this time out.)

Even though I felt that the M.A.S.S. device plot ends a bit anticlimactically, it doesn't mean there isn't a crazy end battle that seals up the mini series with a bang. In fact it's pretty darn exciting and weird. As the Joes realize they have a tracking device available at the Cobra location, they begin beaming all their troops ala Star Trek to that castle area. Of course, they come prepared with these weird mountain-climbing spider leg attachments for all their land vehicles so they can scale the castle wallsâ

Cobra also breaks out a wide variety of defenses ranging from the tried and true cauldron of boiling lava (to be poured on the scaling troops) to a futuristic floating platform for the troops to hover and shoot from. There are Sky Strikers making raids on the castle roof, anti-aircraft guns being hoisted to the top of the structure, and even Doc, the medic, gets in on the actionâ

Though not labeled as a pacifist like the later medic, Lifeline, it's still weirdly out of place to see him firing a laser in the trenchesâ

To top it all off Cobra Commander call out his uber snake robots to deal with the Joesâ

I love the pointless, yet brand specific, hanging snake tongues on all the robots. Again, you can just hear the conversation between the weapons designer and Cobra Commander (actually, this Lil'Formers comic pretty much sums it up.) It's a good thing that Snake Eyes plays the ultimately prepared commando in this seriesâ

Here's a question, who is that guy in the civies? I seem to remember him from the show, but for the life of me I can't place his nameâ

We also get one of probably only two or three romantic moments in the series as Duke confronts the freed Selena (who proceeds to plant a huge kiss on his lips.) In the next couple scenes, Duke ends up with Selena hanging off one arm and Scarlett the other proving he really is a lady's man.

The last thing in this episode that I love is watching Cobra Commander skulking away with a dirty ragged blanket on and a basket over his head. This is about as over the top comical as you can get. It's very vaudevillian and perfectly sums up his characterâ

Well, this closes out my look back at the 1st G.I. Joe mini series. I thought I'd take a moment to again plug the Saturday Supercast over at Sugary Serials. We talk about this episode in the second part of our discussion on G.I. Joe (you can find the episode here.) Jerzy, Kevin and I have already recorded our third and fourth episodes, another two-parter that delves into another great 80s cartoon franchise. Hopefully we'll have those episodes edited and posted in the coming weeks. Also, if you're getting the bug to watch this great mini series again, you could always head on over to Amazon and pick up the new set recently released by Shout! Factory. ]]> G.I. Joe Cartoon Commentary Fri, 7 Aug 2009 08:53:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=512266# Shawn Michael Robare No Just in time for pre-Thanksgiving preperations, the next volume of G.I. Joe on DVD... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=512449# Season 1.2â

This volume is set to be released on November 3rd, 2009 and you can currently pre-order it on Amazon for a measly $21 (and I wouldn't be surprised to see it drop to $17 closer to the actual release.) When all is said and done, these individual releases will contain 99% of the same material as the complete box set. They'll only be lacking a voice cast reunion (which I've heard is pretty darn good if you're into that sort of thing) and a feature with G.I. Joe comic writer Larry Hama.

Also, I'm hoping that the volume 3 cover features Tomax and Xamot above the logo and maybe some of my favorite Joes like Quick Kick, Airtight, Beachhead, Wetsuit, and Lowlight on the bottom. Volume 4 needs to switch it up with Sgt. Slaughter above the title and the Dreadnoks and Zartan below. Just a thought...
]]> 80s Cartoons Available on DVD Fri, 7 Aug 2009 00:32:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=512449# Shawn Michael Robare No OMG, Another Branded in the 80s Podcast, this time about some BMX memories... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=511802#

In the interest of seeing whether or not I can keep the Branded in the 80s podcasts flowing, here's another episode that's dedicated to some of my memories of the various bicycles I had growing up. I talk for a little bit about my first two bikes, a hand-me-down yellow beauty that had a girl's frame an a great banana seat, and my first dirt bike, a Huffy that was white and black with red trim and a cushioned upper handlebar that saved me from cracking my skull open on a few occasionsâ

âas well as the bike love of my life, my 1987 baby blue GT Performer that had great white and pink trim. Unfortunately I don't have any personal photos of that bike, but below there's an almost identical representation. Mine had black dice for air nozzle caps and a set of white metal pegs that attached to the hub of the back wheel, but itâs pretty much exactly like mineâ

I also talk about the wondiforous 80s BMX flick RAD, Eddie Fiola (pictured in the GT Performer ad above), Bart Conner (who played Bart Taylor the semi-evil BMX god that rode for Mongoose bikes in the Rad flick), Bill Allen, Lori Loughlin, Talia Shire, John Farnham (who gave us some great 80s anthems in Rad), and of course the infamous freestyle BMX dance sequence from Radâ

If you enjoyed this podcast and if you haven't read it, here's my more in depth review of the Rad movie, and here's some Rad trivia from star Bill Allen's site. Also, if you're enjoying my rambling podcast then I'd also like to point you to the other show I'm doing now, the Saturday Supercast over at Sugary Serials.com where I'm joined by co-hosts Jerzy Drozd and Kevin Cross (two great comic artists.) We deconstruct our favorite cartoons of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and the first two episodes are available for download (parts one and two of a discussion on the first G.I. Joe mini series from 1983.)

]]> podcasts Wed, 5 Aug 2009 11:52:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=511802# Shawn Michael Robare No Peel Here #87: Crass marketing or Personal Time Machine? http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=511144#

It's funny. When I stop and think, really think, about merchandising and ad campaigns, it amazes me just how devious some of the practices are, especially when it's aimed at kids. It's an area that I have strong feeling about, and weirdly it's in support of both sides of the issue. Let me back up for a second. This all stems from a handful of stickers I wanted to share today, these Burger King branded puffy stickers (probably from around 1984 or so judging by similar stickers from other fast food chainsâ)

The basic conundrum is whether or not it's appropriate to use a branded product as fodder for kidâs toys and the like. I mean, how many kids are brand loyal for a fast food chain at that age? Why would a kid pick up a pack of BK puffy stickers except because of the familiar logo design and the fact that it's a sticker? So it's like getting a kid (or more likely their parent) to pay for an advertisement. I think the fact that these are Burger Kind stickers sort of sits wrong in my craw because to be honest, the King character was always sort of creepy and hollow to me. What's his back story? I'm positive he has one, but for the life of me (and without checking a wiki article) I haven't the slightest clue. This is certainly not a defense, but at least Ronald McDonald has a personality and I can understand why kids get fascinated with the McDonald-land characters.

It also reminds me of these super tacky school supplies I saw at Target the other day. They were from a company called Terracycle which specializes in marketing products that use recycled materials, in particular junk food packaging. There were pencil cases made from old Doritos cases and Capri Sun pouches, as well as binders made from similar materials. Looking on there website there's also backpacks, lunchboxes, and messenger bags as well. On the surface this seems like a great idea, but really it's just the worst kind of marketing ploy to wrap kids in billboards before sending them off to school. Is there a reason that the logos on the packaging had to face outward? Nope, and I'm sure Terracycle is getting some sort of subsidy from the companies whose products they're recycling. It just seems kind of evil in a way.

On the other hand, the legacy that this sort of crass marketing has in terms of acting as a pop culture time capsule is amazing. We live in a world where we're inundated with so much stuff, most of it products, and as distasteful as that environment can be it also provides a subconscious side effect as acting as sort of a Rosetta stone that helps us remember our past. I've mentioned this concept before and it bears repeating. Everyone probably has a fond memory of hanging out with family snacking on a particular cracker or sipping a specific brand of soda. Since products are constantly changing in appearance or dropping off the face of the earth to be replaced by some new version, the old acts as a portal to that specific memory.

I mean I can still buy Betty Crocker Fruit Roll-Ups at any supermarket and they're pretty meaningless to my existence. But back in the 80s when Fruit Roll-Ups were still being produced by the Fruit Corners company, and they looked and tasted different, it means something different to me now. When they were first released, the process of packaging the thin sheets of processed fruit leather was far from perfected, and often the fruity sheet would get so stuck to the plastic it was wrapped in it was damn near impossible to remove. Because of this, and because I was a super lazy and weird kid I used to stick the whole thing, wrapper and all, in my mouth. I'd chew on that sucker until all I could taste was the plastic backing, and then I'd spit it out into the trash. Well one time when my father took me hiking in the woods all I had to snack on were said Fruit Roll-Ups and my less than brilliantly deductive mind didn't think of what I would do with a left over chewed and slimy piece of plastic backing, and I ended up keeping it in my cheek like a screwy hamster for the entire hike, making myself sick and my father disgusted. Now, thinking back on it, it's a fond memory, a memory I owe to a product. If I had the opportunity to get a hold of a bunch of original Fruit Corners branded Fruit roll-Up package stickers it would be a huge boon that would always take me back to that hiking trip with my dad.

Who knows, maybe the Burger King mascot, or a Whopper puffy sticker is someone else's gateway to a fond memory. May those Capri Sun pencil cases will be an amazingly fond memory for a kid. I'm so torn on the subject.

Anyway, here are some related articles on Branded you might find interesting:

Current trend in Fast Food gimmicks

Creepy Anthropomorphized Food

Burger King Frozen Coke's

Wendy's and miscellaneous product puffy stickers (towards the end of the sticker collection)

]]> Peel Here Volume 8 Mon, 3 Aug 2009 19:37:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=511144# Shawn Michael Robare No Dusting off the podcast... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=510506#

Well, with all the podcasting I've been doing lately with the newly revamped Saturday Supercast, I got the bug to dust off the Branded in the 80s podcast as well. Don't know how regularly I'll put one of these out, but it was fun to record just the same.

Basically I spend around 50 minutes talking about some of my general thoughts on cartoons. Filmation, Hanna Barbera, animation cels, a deconstructive/critical eye towards cartoons, Action for Children's Television, and why you might want to listen to the Saturday Supercast. I also threw in a bunch of cartoon theme songs (under the main conversation of the podcast), as well as the majority of the one Kidd Video studio album.

If you'd like to check out the Supercast, you can click on the link below and it'll whisk you away to the archives.

]]> podcasts Sat, 1 Aug 2009 23:25:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=510506# Shawn Michael Robare No All right, I'm gonna turn over the next card. Concentrate... I want you to tell me what you think it is... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=510000# I did not see this coming. I've heard that sometimes patience can be rewarded, and this past week I think mine has finally paid off. Just over a year ago I mentioned the impending release of the Complete Real Ghostbusters cartoon on DVD from Time Life, and to be honest I was a little bitchy about the whole deal. Basically TL was offering the series exclusively through their website at slightly bloated price of $180. For the most part I'm not a fan of complete series sets, at least not ones this large as they tend to be overpriced, come in odd, overly flashy packaging, and usually contain bonus material not available on collections of individual season sets. This last trend tends to bug me if only because complete series sets are usually released after any individual sets have finished coming out and it's an example of the worst in DVD double dipping.

Lately this trend has been reversed, particularly with 80s cartoon properties, and to Time Life's credit the full series came first. The set was still about $60 too much and I have to say that I appreciate it when other options are available. Even with their payment plan, you're still overpaying for a series that's been around for 20 odd years, and a lot of that money is going into useless "shiny" packaging. Steelbook cases wrapped in a lenticular box is a bit of overkill, especially when these sets aren't sitting on store shelves wowing potential customers. Lets be honest, most people who pick up this set are going to wedge it on a shelf between the rest of their DVD boxsets and aren't going to get all that much appreciation out of the presentation.

All griping aside, and getting to the gist of this post, is the tip-off from TV Shows on DVD.com that Amazon has just put up a pre-order for the Complete Series set. Again, I did not see this coming. Time Life has a history of sitting on home video releases for shows that they keep exclusive sales rights to, in particular the Muppet Show which was only available in hideously expensive two-episode single-disc editions for almost a decade. I mean I was pretty happy towards the end of last year when they relented a little on the Real Ghostbusters and made the first volume of the series available to regular retail. This news though is a coup, and hopefully it's a sign that they're willing to expand the purchasing options for shows they license.

The best part of this news is that Amazon is currently knocking $54 off the MSRP, making the set much more affordable at $126! Even with the summer sale that Time Life has been running (taking $35 off the price to bring it in line with the cost of the Shout! Factory complete G.I. Joe and Transformers sets) this is the cheapest it's been yet. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, it's only a 30% drop, but doing the math, the cost per volume is roughly $25, which is a heck of an improvement over the original $36 per volume price. Also for those of us that aren't that interested in the final seasons of the show (the Slimer & the Real Ghostbusters years), this is a great way to subsidize having to pick those up as well.

The bottom line is that this move by Time Life was enough to win me over. It's still a dent in the checkbook, but it's at least justifiable nowâ ]]> 80s Cartoons Available on DVD Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:22:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=510000# Shawn Michael Robare No Les Lye has left the building and he was followed by a cavalcade of wonderful characters... http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=507361#

I was going to post the last Cartoon Commentary! column for the original G.I. Joe mini series today, but I thought I'd take a second to share some sad news instead. I found out yesterday that actor/humanitarian Les Lye passed away on Tuesday the 21st. Most people probably know nothing about this great man, but for kids like me who grew up in the 80s glued to Nickelodeon Mr. Lye was a huge part of our lives. Les Lye was an icon in Canadian children's television, and thanks to Nickelodeon's forward thinking when it came to their slate of international shows in their original programming schedule, kids all over America got a chance to watch You Can't Do That on Television at least twice a day for around fourteen years (between the original 10 seasons and reruns for years after.) The children's sketch comedy show was broadcast from 1979 until 1990, and the only mainstay from beginning to end, and the guy who really helped to give a voice and feel to the comedy was Mr. Lye.

For me, growing up in the 80s, You Can't Do That on Television was my first year exposure to sketch comedy. It opened my eyes and primed me for shows like Monty Python, Kids in the Hall, and SCTV, the Upright Citizen's Brigade, the State and of course Saturday Night Live, and of all the great character performers, Phil Hartman, Eugene Levy, Christopher Guest, Mark McKinney, Dana Carvey, Michael Palin, Andrea Martin, Matt Besser, Thomas Lennon, and Joe Lo Truglio, Les Lye was doing work that was shoulder to shoulder. There was a little bit of Lon Chaney in his range as he embodied at least 13 regular characters, each distinct and hilarious, not to mention a ton of other adult male roles for the show.

He's probably best known for playing Ross Ewich, the program director at YCDTOTV, infusing a little bit of Pat Harrinton's One Day at a Time character Schneider as well as his own brand of sleazy manager and general foil for the kids. Of course, his portrayal of Barth Bagge, the short order cook from hell is nothing short of genius. I don't think there was a kid exposed to that character that didn't find themselves uttering the catchphrase "I heard thatâ" on a daily basis. Here's a gallery of some of his best charactersâ

Ross Ewich, Barth, & Blip (the arcade proprietor)â

The Principal, the teacher (Mr. Schidtler, one part Hitler one part Wallace Shawn), and the crazed bus driver Snake Eyesâ

The Executioner El Capitano (who always manages to get himself shot), the dungeon torturer Nasti, and the Groucho Marx inspired doctorâ

The studio announcer, and later there was also the camel-nosed football coach, and the similarly unfortunately-schnozed camp counslerâ

My favorite by far was his character Lance Prevert the resident father and drunken Senatorâ

Whereas most people seem to find Homer Simpson as the most modern relate-able father figure, for me it will always be Les Lye's Dad. There was just something magical about his shabby, filthy appearance with the crazy bird's nest of reddish brown hair and that slight five o'clock shadow.

I've read nothing but great things about Mr. Lye, how he was giving of his time, super gracious to his fans, and an amazing guy to work with, and though I never got a chance to meet him, I'll miss him terribly just the same. Hopefully one day Viacom with get their collective thumbs out of their asses and finish their plans to put You Can't Do That on Television out on DVD so that more generations of kids can get exposed to all the amazing stuff from that show, in particular Mr. Les Lye. You can find some episodes of the show at the great Manchester Morgue blog.

]]> 80's TV Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:56:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=507361# Shawn Michael Robare No G.I. Joe Magazine, Spring 1988! http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=506547# Esteban over at the Vintage space Toaster Palace spend umpteen hours going blind while scanning microfiche for ad circulars and sale notices from newspapers from all over the country, compiling all sorts of toy robot goodness. On the outside it might seem crazy, but it's important, even if it sounds like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters sculpting mashed potatoes important. It helps to weave a tapestry that acts as a portal into the past.

For me, my goldmine is old magazines. Some reap better material than others, but all of them usually have something that shines, usually in the form of an ad, but sometimes thereâs some gold in the articles as well. Unfortunately, depending on where you live in a particular state or in the country, finding magazines from years past can be quite the hassle. I mean, they are periodicals, and more or less designed to be disposable, so you tend to have to rely on hoarders and pack rats. On top of that, you have to wait for them to want to part with these treasures, and even then for these people to be motivated enough to drag them to flea markets, used bookstores and to eBay. I'll be honest, this isn't a very reliable group to begin with, so the chances of finding anything outside of the odd People or Life magazine is pretty rare. In particular the kid-themed zines like Stickers, Muppet, Hot Dog, Electric Company, Dynamite, or the various movie and TV show specials. Even rarer are the cartoon property magazines like Thundercats, Masters of the Universe, and G.I. Joe, at least in my experience. I've found a handful of these, and for a fun little diversion from the Joe mini series discussion this week, yet still sort of on topic, I thought I'd break out my copy of G.I. Joe magazine from Spring 1988â

The magazine ran for at least 9 issues and the bulk of them were published quarterly in 1987 and 1988. I have no idea how I found out about it (though it was most likely from an advert that was package with one of the vehicles), but I had a subscription during the 1987 season. I picked this copy up at a second hand book store a few years ago. These weren't very big, usually only running about 30 odd pages, but back in the summer of '87 I was completely enamored with 'em, reading, and re-reading the articles and news. I also clipped the covers and put them on my wall, right next to my Ralph Macchio and Lost Boys posters.

As for this issue, well it reminds me how out of touch I was getting in 1988 with the G.I. Joe franchise. I'd pretty much stopped buying new figures at this point (probably having moved on to Micro Machines, baseball cards, and comic books), and I'm more or less unfamiliar with this crop of figures. The last figure I remember buying at this time was the hooded Storm Shadow (who had just left Cobra to join G.I. Joe.) I only remember Road Pig because of his striking resemblance to Sven-Ole Thorsen, that actor from the 80s that always seemed to end up as Arnold Schwarzenegger's nemesis in movies. Looking back on some of the file cards, I think Hasbro was really running out of steam on these characters, I mean Spearhead (the one in the driver's seat) was a first class insurance salesman for crying out loud!

Basically these were variations on boys life magazines, with a few articles on sports, a bit of movie and television news, the odd interview and a G.I. Joe short storyâ

Looking back, it's kind of weird how the magazine was set up, treating the G.I. Joe characters as if they existed (and guest edited an issue or two), but I suppose for kids this isn't all that odd. I don't think I ever wrote into the magazine, but I'd be willing to bet it wasn't for lack of trying to pen a magnum opus of a letter. I seem to remember trying my hand at drawing a picture of a Sky Striker in a dogfight with a Cobra Rattler, but never finishing itâ

I think it's interesting that a handful of these drawings are based on the card art for the figures (in particular Falcon, and Cobra Commander in Battle Armor below.) Though these end up looking like the more technically proficient pieces, I'm more interested in the drawings that came totally from the kid's minds (like the friendly Nemesis Enforcer waving or Blowtorch striking a pose.)

I feel a little bad for any kids who begged their parents to pick up a subscription from the ad in this issue as there would only be three more produced at this point. I bet those kids lamented not receiving that final unproduced issue in the Spring of 1989. On the other hand, maybe sporting a pair of those badass G.I. Joe themed sunglasses made the pain float away. Who knowsâ

Here's an example of the type of news a boy can really useâ

That's right, look out for Crocodile Dundee II coming soon to a theater near you. Now that I think about it, Paul Hogan's career ended about the same time that this magazine finally died out in the winter of 1988â

Anyway, as I mentioned above, what really gets me excited about these back issues are the ads. There were only a few really cool ones in this issue, but they're gems. First up is this Sunkist Fruit Snacks ad featuring the cast of the Archie comicsâ

Back in the 80s, the Sunkist Fruit snacks were some of my favorites, but then again, that was back when it was just them and Fruit Corners producing the original Fruit Rollups. Now most fruit snacks are under the Betty Crocker branding, and they all sort of taste super artificial. It's just not the same.

Next up is another death knell, except in this case it was ringing in the end of the G1 Transformers line of toys with the release of the Pretenders figuresâ

Honestly, just based on this ad I would have been floored to pick some of these up at the time. I just remember being really disappointed with them though, as they were sucky in "human mode" and not all that great as Transformers. It reminds me though, that Nala over at Plastic Crack recently found one of these beauties mint in box while he was cleaning up his parent's basementâ

Rounding out the advertising goodness is an application for the Ernest P. Worrell Fan Club! I don't know about you guys, but I can freely admit to loving Jim Varney. I grew up on the Ernest local fox affiliate commercials in Florida, and always thought he was a local sensation. By the time Ernest Goes to Camp and the Saturday Morning show Hey Vern, It's Ernest came along I was hooked. Granted, the Ernest movies overstayed their welcome after the surreal Ernest Goes to Jail, but I'll always have a special little place in my heart for the Jim Varney and his zany anticsâ

In this issue we also get an interview with ALF, which is odd on a couple levels. On the one hand, the magazine is sort of written from the point of view of the Joe team, so imaginary characters like Storm Shadow are writing and editing articles. On the other, these fictional characters are interviewing ALF, not Paul Fusco (the producer, writer, and voice behind the puppet), but the character himselfâ

Each issue also featured a G.I. Joe short story, like Space Shuttle Spin-Out here, which typically had some pretty awful illustrations. I think even as a kid these paintings bugged meâ

It's was probably the juxtaposition with the awesome cover art, and the really badass art on the pull out posters (see this issue's below) that got me hating the interior art.

Finishing out the magazine are a few pages of puzzlesâ

âand an ad for a sister publication, Thundercats Magazine. Though I'm sure it's more of the same, I've never gotten a chance to take a gander inside one of these, so I'm kind of curious. I wonder why there wasn't a Transformers magazine?

Anyway, tomorrow I'll be back with the final installment of the G.I. Joe original mini series Cartoon Commentary! columnâ

In the meantime here are some other articles I've written about magazines over the yearsâ

Stickers Magazine Issue #7
Stickers & Stuff Magazine Issue #14
Muppet Magazine
...as well as my archive of TV Guide Fall Preview Issues...
]]> general Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:56:00 GMT http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=506547# Shawn Michael Robare No Cartoon Commentary! G.I. Joe Episode 4 Duel in the Devil's Cauldron http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=506093#

One of the things that I find endlessly fascinating about cartoons in the 80s is the tonal shift that a lot of the shows took. Throughout the 70s child advocacy groups like A.C.T. (Action for Children's Television) were having a huge impact on the production of Saturday Morning cartoons, in particular pressuring studios to self-censor content. So most action and adventure was stripped from new shows, and generally humor ruled the day. In the 80s though, with a new president in the White House who had an eye on freeing up TV regulations, some studios took the opportunity to bring back action and adventure, while at the same time doing their level best to also make the shows a little more educational. Some studios were more heavy handed than others (Filmation for instance based most episodes around a moral quandary), while others were sort of sneaky about the "good for you" content.

For the most part Sunbow was a bit sneakier about it. Sure there were the "Knowing is half the battleâ" PSAs, bust as far as the content in the actual episodes, it seemed like pretty straight forward storytelling. This is sort of the genius of the writers, at least in terms of knocking down the wall between educational and exciting & fun television. Instead of knocking kids over the head with a moral, they injected little subtle ideas here and there that didn't draw all that much attention. That was one of the first things that caught my eye while re-watching episode four of the original G.I. Joe mini series, Duel in the Devil's Cauldron (which was originally broadcast back on September 15th, 1983.)

In the cliffhanger from the episode before, the Joes have been mostly knocked out by a noxious gas emitting from a Cobra canister that Snake Eyes used to bring back some of the eradiated crystals for the M.A.S.S. Device. The canister was also set to explode, but with some quick thinking on Covergirl's part, she manages to get the bomb out of the hanger they're all in. What caught my eye was when she breaks a beaker of water and then uses a hanky to soak up the liquid. This makes an impromptu gas mask that she uses to keep from passing out. Granted it's not a huge deal, but it's a little fact like this that'll sit in the back of a kids brain and one day might come in handy. I mean education doesn't always have to be about algebra and world history. This sort of stuff was peppered all throughout the series, and in my opinion is the way to go when educating kids with television.

Anyway, getting back to some of the visual tropes of the show, one of the main differences between the action figures and the cartoon were the weapons. While all the toys were outfitted with a menagerie of different kinds of weapons, from handguns and shotguns, to Uzis and rocket launchers, the cartoon was a little more toned down. Instead of realistic weaponry, most of the characters (good and evil) carry laser rifles and guns. On the one hand it works toward the branding of the heroes (red laser fire) and villains (blue laser fire), but it also puts the show in that fantastical near-future with advanced technology.

While I don't mind the laser fire in place of bullets, I always thought the standard issue Joe rifles were a little boring. They didnât have a ton of character like other weapons design, and they were typically beige with silver trim which isn't all that visually exciting. I always wondered why they didn't vary the designs a little moreâ

So this episode has the Joes globetrotting on down to South America for their crack at the third catalytic element, the meteor chips that can only be found in the Devil's Cauldron. Like Kevin Cross mentions in the second half of the Saturday Supercast, this has got to be the one location that got all the child viewers excited. What kid doesn't love lava? I mean seriously, what kid didn't play the "The carpet is now lava and we have to only walk on the furnitureâ" game when we were young?

The other thing I dig about this sequence is that it's another great example of backlit animation with the lava. It's such a great technique that's lost in modern cartoons because most, if not all of them, are now drawn digitally. God bless the popularity of Tron for ushering in 10 years of backlit techniques into cartoons is all I have to sayâ

I also love the next sequence in the cartoon, if only for its blatant commercialism. I love G.I. Joe, and I'll defend its merits to the death, but sometimes the product placement/30 minute commercial aspect to the show was insane. When Stalker signals the surrender of the Joe army to Cobra via a super