Saturday 12 April 2014

Swamp Thing

Something a little bit cheesy, but extremely fun for a Saturday evening with the very short lived animated version of Swamp Thing!


Based upon the DC Comics character and like previous film incarnations of Swamp Thing, the animated series rejects the popular Alan Moore revision of Swamp Thing's origin and portrays him with his original origin as a man turned into a plant-like entity. Anton Arcane takes the role of the main villain responsible for Alec Holland's transformation into Swamp Thing. Arcane is backed by his gang of Un-Men: Dr. Deemo, Weedkiller, and Skinman. Swamp Thing also has two friends named Tomahawk and Bayou Jack. Tomahawk is Native American not to be confused with the DC/Vertigo character, Thomas Hawk, who was a soldier in the American Revolution rescued by Native Americans. Bayou Jack is a Vietnam veteran.
Similar to Troma's Toxic Crusaders, the animation style of Swamp Thing follows the trend of goofy, horror anti-heroes made for the children. Spoofing Chip Taylor's "Wild Thing," the opening theme plays "Swamp Thing! ...You are amazing!" The series also bears an environmentally conscious side also noted in many of its contemporaries.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾

This week has been a sad week in the public eye. On Thursday, Sue Townsend the author of the Adrian Mole series sadly passed away. In her memory I bring you the TV adaptation of her first in the Adrian Mole series, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾.





Poor Adrian has a lot on his plate! His parents are perpetually on the verge of divorce, he volunteers to help the aged and gets stuck with a revolting old man who treats him like a skivvy, he thinks he's an intellectual but still can't manage to do very well at school, the girl he liked starts going out with his best friend and the only person who seems on his side is his mad old grandma. Top this off with everything happening in early 80's Britain and naming Margaret Thatcher as his worst enemy, this teenager certainly has a lot to write about!

Friday 11 April 2014

Robocop - The Animated Series

The future of law enforcement is here, Alex Murphy is Robocop!


Based on the original movie, the first RoboCop animated series features cyborg cop Alex Murphy (RoboCop), who fights to save the city of Old Detroit from assorted rogue elements, and on occasion, fighting to reclaim aspects of his humanity and maintain his usefulness in the eyes of the "Old Man", Chairman of OCP. Many episodes see RoboCop's reputation put to the test or soured by interventions from Dr. McNamara, the creator of ED-260, the upgradable version of the Enforcement Droid Series 209 and the top competitor for the financial backing of OCP. He continually develops other mechanical menaces that threaten RoboCop.
In the police force, RoboCop is befriended as always by Officer Anne Lewis, but is also picked on and lambasted by the prejudiced Lieutenant Roger Hedgecock (who appeared as a minor character in the original film and his first name revealed in "Night of the Archer"), ever determined to be rid of him and his kind, whom he sees as ticking time bombs. Their rivalry comes to a fever pitch during the episode "The Man in the Iron Suit", in which Hedgecock comes close to finally beating Murphy with the aid of a new weapons system developed by McNamara. He almost kills Lewis when she interferes, enraging Murphy into tearing Hedgecock's iron suit apart and nearly crushing his skull before Lewis emerges, alive and well. RoboCop is maintained by RoboCop Project director Dr. Tyler.


Thursday 10 April 2014

Crystal Tipps and Alistair

A classic from the 70's for you now with Crystal Tipps and Alistair!


Crystal Tipps is a young woman who lives in a country cottage with her pet dog Alistair. He is very talented and can even ride a bike! You can see her coming a mile off, as she has very distinctive purple hair (triangle shaped!). The both of them love playing in the countryside and discovering things. Once they found a large egg. Crystal Tipps took it home and hatched it under a tea cosy. The bird that hatched from it was beautiful and it decided to stay and live with them.

Iron Man

Time for some more Marvel action on the BCC! The Mandarin has a nefarious plan up his sleeve and only Iron Man can stop him!


The first season of Iron Man featured little more than a Masters of the Universe-style battle of "good against evil", as billionaire industrialist Tony Stark battled the evil forces of the world-conquering Mandarin as the armored superhero, Iron Man. In his evil endeavors to steal Stark's technology and Iron Man's armor, the Mandarin led a group of villains consisting of Dreadknight, Blizzard, Blacklash, Grey Gargoyle (when it comes to fighting Iron Man and his team, he has a tendency to accidentally turn his fellow villains to stone), Hypnotia (Dreadknight and Blacklash were rivals for the affections of Hypnotia), Whirlwind, Living Laser, MODOK, Fin Fang Foom and Justin Hammer. To combat these villains, Iron Man had the help of his own team (based on Force Works, a then-current comic book team which has since faded into obscurity), including Century, War Machine, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye (replacing U.S. Agent from the comics) and Spider Woman.
The season consisted mostly of single-episode open-and-shut-case adventures, with two two-part stories late towards the end. Unlike many other Marvel animated series, despite featuring over-the-top titles that paid homage to the early Stan Lee written Marvel comics of the 1960s (for example, "The Grim Reaper Wears a Teflon Coat", and "Rejoice, I am Ultimo, Thy Deliverer"), almost none of the episodes were adaptations of comic book stories, consisting instead of original stories penned by Ron Friedman, occasionally collaborated on by Stan Lee himself. The closest the season came to adapting a comic book tale was in the two-part "The Origin of Iron Man", which recounted a (modified and modernized) version of the character's comic book origin just before the season concluded.

Wednesday 9 April 2014

The Smurfs

Time for a trip into the forest to see Papa Smurf and the rest of the inhabitants of Smurf Village!



The Smurfs are a colony of small blue creatures that live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest. The storylines tend to be simple tales of bold adventure.
Papa Smurf is the leader of the community. Other Smurfs are generally named after their personality disposition, for example, Brainy, Greedy, Vanity, Lazy, Clumsy, Hefty, Jokey, Dreamy, Grouchy, or their profession, for example, Poet, Actor, Handy, Harmony, Farmer, Clockwork, Painter, Tailor, Miner, Architect, Reporter, Timber, Barber and Doctor Smurf. Other Smurf characters include Gutsy Smurf and Smurfette.
The non-Smurf characters who would appear later would include their enemies the wizard Gargamel, his cat Azrael, and Gargamel's godfather Balthazar; and their friends the page Johan and his young friend Peewit and the wizard Homnibus. There are 105 Smurfs.
The first female Smurf was magically created from clay by Gargamel, the Smurfs' archvillain, to cause jealousy and stir trouble among the Smurfs. But his plan was flawed: Smurfette was ugly. Only after Papa Smurf took pity and did some plastic smurfery on her she became beautiful.

The Smurfs' community generally takes the form of a cooperative, sharing, and kind environment based on the principle that each Smurf has something he or she is good at, and thus contributes it to Smurf society as he or she can. In return, each Smurf appears to be given their necessities of life, from housing and clothes to food without using any money in exchange.

Hulk Hogan's Rock n' Wrestling

Today there was some sad news in the wrestling world. The Ultimate Warrior, a wrestling favourite has passed away. In honour of his passing, I give you the (then) WWF cartoon Hulk Hogan's Rock n' Wrestling!



Hulk Hogan's Rock n' Wrestling featured animated adventures of popular WWF stars from the time, including its title character Hulk Hogan and his group of wrestlers fighting against a group of rogue wrestlers led by Roddy Piper. The show followed cartoon archetypes concerning good characters triumphing over evil-doers in wacky situations, typical of children's cartoons in the 1980s.
Rarely referenced, wrestling was simply a device to determine the good guys from the bad guys. The wrestlers themselves appeared in the live-action segments of the show; however, they did not provide the voices for their animated counterparts. These were instead performed by professional voice actors. One recurring live-action segment was the music video for the cover of "Land of a Thousand Dances" recorded by several WWF wrestlers for The Wrestling Album.
Due to the show being animated and the longer production times that resulted, it often failed to keep pace with the events of the WWF at the time. This resulted in certain wrestlers turning heel (or, in non-wrestling terms, a villain) in regular WWF programming but remaining good guys on the cartoon and vice versa. Jimmy Snuka and Wendi Richter's likenesses were used throughout the series' run, despite both having left the WWF in mid-1985. It also depicted Hogan as having a full head of hair, as opposed to the noticeably receding hairline he sported in the ring.

Tuesday 8 April 2014

Shirt Tales

Next up we have a cartoon about a bunch of helpful, park dwelling shirt wearing critters, The Shirt Tales!



The animated Shirt Tales cartoon featured Tyg Tiger (in orange), Pammy Panda (in pink), Digger Mole (in light blue), Rick Raccoon (in red), and Bogey Orangutan (in green) (so called because he spoke using a Humphrey Bogart-style voice). They lived in Oak Tree Park and wore shirts which flashed various brightly lit messages reflecting the characters' thoughts. They spent their time teasing the park ranger, Mr. Dinkle, and battling crime in and out of their hometown of Mid City. They zipped around the world in a vehicle known as the STSST (Shirt Tales' SuperSonic Transport) which could operate as a car, jet, boat, submarine, and other forms of transportation. Though most law enforcement agencies knew of the Shirt Tales as crime fighters by reputation, few people seemed aware that they were talking animals—including Mr. Dinkle, whom the group often had to trick to keep their secret safe.

The Banana Splits

One banana, two banana, three banana, four! Four bananas make a bunch and so do many more!



Each show represented a meeting of the "Banana Splits Club", and the wraparounds featured the adventures of the club members, who doubled as a musical quartet, meant to be reminiscent of The Beatles and (especially) their NBC counterpart, The Monkees. The main characters were Fleegle, a beagle; Bingo, a gorilla; Drooper, a lion, and Snorky (called "Snork" in the theme song lyrics), an elephant. Fleegle would assume the role as leader of the Banana Splits and preside at club meetings. The characters were played by actors in voluminous fleecy costumes similar to later Sid and Marty Krofft characters such as H.R. Pufnstuf. They all spoke in English (Drooper with a Southern drawl in the manner of Michael Nesmith, Fleegle with a pronounced lisp), except for Snorky who "spoke" in honking noises.
The show's live-action segment Danger Island, a cliffhanger serial, as well as the short-lived Micro Ventures, an animated series consisting of only four episodes, ran alongside with the animated segments Arabian Knights and The Three Musketeers.
Actor Jan Michael Vincent (billed as Michael Vincent) appeared in the live-action component Danger Island; all the live-action material filmed for the series' first season (including the Banana Splits and Danger Island segments) was directed by Richard Donner.

Monday 7 April 2014

Hey Arnold

Life as a kid in the big city can't be easy. Just ask Arnold and his friends!


The show stars fourth grader Arnold, a boy who lives with his paternal grandparents, Phil and Gertrude, proprietors of the Sunset Arms boarding house, in the fictional city of Hillwood. In each episode, Arnold often helps a schoolmate solve a personal problem, or encounters a predicament of his own. The show also frequently focuses on Arnold's classmate, Helga, who often treats Arnold cruelly and bullies him constantly. However, a recurring theme of the show is the fact that Helga only pretends to dislike Arnold to hide the fact that she has possessed a profound, Shakespearean-in-magnitude love for him for years.

Many episodes involve urban legends usually told by Arnold's friend, Gerald. These episodes often feature over-the-top events such as those that involve superheroes or headless horsemen or his Uncle Buck.

Sunday 6 April 2014

Freakazoid!

Superheroes are cool and everything, but what if one was just a little bit loopy too? Here's Freakazoid!

The show's title character is the superhero alter ego of geeky sixteen-year-old Dexter Douglas who attends Harry Connick High School. His name is a parody of various superheroes' alliterative names (e.g. Bruce Banner, Peter Parker). Gaining his abilities from a computer bug (becoming absorbed into his computer and instantly gaining all the information on the Internet), Freakazoid has enhanced strength and endurance, extraordinary speed, agility, and negligible amounts of sanity. These changes make him a powerful and fearsome force for upholding freedom and righteousness, unless he gets distracted by something like a bear riding a motorcycle. He has a base called the Freakalair, a parody of the Batcave, built by his mute butler, Ingmar. The Freakalair contains a "Hall of Nifty Things to Know" and even a mad scientist lab. His greatest weakness, as he once explained to a villain, is that he can be imprisoned in a cage with graphite bars charged with negative ions. He also expresses a great aversion to "poo gas."
Peripheral powers come and go: Freakazoid once developed telekinesis triggered by anger that was never mentioned again after the episode, and once crossed the globe to yell at a Tibetan monk for raking too loudly. He also has the ability to assume the form of electricity and cover long distances instantaneously, although he just as often simply sticks his arms forward and runs while making swooshing sounds with his mouth, pretending to fly.
Dexter can change into and out of Freakazoid at will with the words "Freak out!" and "Freak in!" When not in Freakazoid mode, Dexter looks and acts completely normal, and his family is unaware that anything has happened to him. Freakazoid spends this time in an area of Dexter's brain called the Freakazone, where he reflects, has profound thoughts, and watches reruns of The Rat Patrol.

Jana of the Jungle

A fan request for you all this morning, a feral adventuress known as Jana of the Jungle!



The series is essentially about a female version of Tarzan named Jana, who traveled to the rain forests of South America in search of her lost father. Her father vanished in a boating accident when she was still a child. She has long blonde hair, wears a dress made of unspecified animal skin and a necklace which doubles as a throwable weapon (somewhat similar to the chakram that would be the weapon of choice for the later, live-action Xena, Warrior Princess) given to her by her father. Besides her animal friends Ghost the albino jaguar and Tiko the coatimundi, Jana has two human friends: Dr. Ben Cooper and Montaro, a descendant of a lost warrior tribe who is armed with a supernatural weapon known as the Staff of Power that can cause earthquake shockwaves when it strikes the ground. Montaro rescued Jana from the boat accident in which her father disappeared.