Month January 2013

Why Y’all Hatin’ on Witch Lezah?

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As we reach the midway point of The Looney Tunes Show‘s sophomore season, I’ve noticed the hate rants and complaints about the show have diminished considerably. No doubt this is partly due to how the writers and artists have actually listened to viewer complaints about the show and have adjusted things accordingly: they’ve abandoned Jessica Borutski’s original stylized character designs in favor of a more ‘classic’ look, they’ve switched to brighter colors (Bugs is gray again instead of pale lavender!), the writers have upped the slapstick and the visual gags, there are more callbacks to the original shorts, and in general things have just gotten ‘loonier’. (Of course, we still haven’t seen much of Elmer Fudd, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote segments are gone and the Merrie Melodies are on the way out with the departure of Ms. Borutski, but no show is perfect.)

However, it’s not all hunky-dory in the Looney Tunes ‘hood; despite the improvements the show has made, there is one element of TLTS that still continues to raise peoples’ ire. Namely, this lady:

 This harbinger of evil, this blight upon the community, is Witch Lezah, the fun-house mirror version of Bugs Bunny’s Looney Tunes adversary Witch Hazel, here cast as Bugs and Daffy’s no-nonsense witch neighbor and single mother to little boy inside the body of a 9-foot tall giant orange monster Gossamer, voiced by African-American stage, film and TV comedienne and actress Roz Ryan.
While a secondary character on the show itself, there is a surprising amount of hate and derision aimed at this character. The biggest irate questions asked about the Witch are: why is she called ‘Lezah’ instead of ‘Hazel’? Why does she sound black? and Why isn’t June Foray voicing her, especially when June Foray is on the show voicing Granny? One colleague of mine who’s a member of both The Big Cartoon Database and the place I recently moved out of, Toon Zone, is one of Lezah’s biggest detractors, never passing up an opportunity to cast stones at the character and her voice actress. His favorite smack against the character is to call constantly (and I do mean constantly) compare Witch Lezah to Mammy Two-Shoes, the Buelah-esque black maid featured in the early Tom & Jerry cartoons, referring to Lezah as “The Mammy Two-Shoes Witch” and accusing the character of being “an offensive stereotype of a black woman”. His favorite comment (which he’ll spout at the drop of a hat) is: “I think if they decide to bring Mammy Two Shoes back to Tom and Jerry, Roz Ryan would be the perfect voice actress for her.”
Now, I like and respect this guy; he’s a little candid with his views, but he often offers intelligent observations backed by facts and reason, and he does his research so he knows a lot about the animation industry and the people behind it, so I can respect most of what he has to say, which is why I didn’t preface his comments as a Point and Laugh, however, I couldn’t disagree with him more about Witch Lezah. I’ll save my views on his points for later, right now allow me address the other questions people keep asking about the Witch:
  • Why is the Witch called ‘Lezah’ instead of ‘Hazel’?
  • Why does she sound black?
  • Why isn’t June Foray voicing her, especially when June Foray is on the show voicing Granny?
I’ll answer these in reverse order. First, as to why June Foray isn’t voicing the Witch, well, that’s another elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge, but that’s kind of what we do here. Namely, that as of this writing, June Foray is 95 years old. 95. No one wants to face that, but the woman is pushing a century. It’s very possible (and quite likely) that Ms. Foray no longer has the energy and stamina to perform such a lively character anymore, and also WB probably doesn’t want to give Ms. Foray a lot of work to do because it’s not known how much more time she has on this dimensional plane. Note how Granny has been a tad more subdued than her early shorts appearances, and note also how Granny as yet hasn’t had any speaking roles since season 2 started. Regarding why Lezah sounds black, that’s because she’s voiced by an African-American woman, Roz Ryan.
Roz_Ryan_8
Regular viewers probably recognize Ms. Ryan as the voice of Bubbie the whale on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. She also voiced Thalia, the Muse of Comedy on Disney’s Hercules (1997). She has also voiced Cake on CN’s Adventure Time and Wade’s mom on Kim Possible. Among her live-action appearances have been NBC’s Amen (1986-1991), Barbershop (2005), General Hospital (2012) and The Rickey Smiley Show (2012).
As for the name change, I’m guessing that was implemented because LT purists wouldn’t accept anyone else other than June Foray voicing Witch Hazel (though it’s worth mentioning that in Hazel’s first shorts appearance, Bewitched Bunny, she was voiced by Bea Benederet), so the producers established her as a different character altogether, by simply switching the name around–‘Lezah’ is ‘Hazel’ backwards. (Another question I’ve heard more than once is: is there any connection or relation between Witch Lezah and Witch Hazel? I once read on Wikipedia that in-universe Lezah is supposed to be Hazel’s sister and that Witch Hazel herself was supposed to appear on a Halloween themed episode sometime during season 2. Of course it’s worth mentioning that this was posted on Wikipedia, which anyone and their Aunt Gertrude can edit, and said information was promptly removed shortly thereafter, so my guess is that this was nothing but an unfounded and groundless internet rumor.)
Now, on to my friend’s Mammy-Two Shoes analogy. Yes, Lezah’s voice and mannerisms are indeed based on those of a stereotypical Black American woman, but I don’t see this as an offensive ethnic stereotype so much as the writers intentionally basing the character’s persona around that of the actress who provides her voice. Lezah is more or less an animated version of the characters Ms. Ryan typically portrays on TV and movies. It’s no different from how Donkey from Shrek and Iago from Disney’s Aladdin were modeled after their voice actors, Eddie Murphy and Gilbert Gottfried respectively. Now as an African-American, I’m usually the first to point out when something is racially offensive, and I’m not the least bit offended by Roz Ryan’s Witch Lezah, however I do get kind of miffed at my fellow poster’s constant Mammy Two-Shoes comparisons. Is Lezah a tad stereotypical? Yes, no denying that. But I think calling her a Mammy Two-Shoes throwback is taking it a tad too far. And maybe Ms. Ryan could possibly voice MTS, but I can assure  you that a return of Mammy Two-Shoes to the Tom & Jerry-verse is NEVER going to happen. You can file that right alongside of Disney ever releasing Song of the South on DVD in the Never Gonna Happen bin. Now I don’t hate the character of MTS; I can tolerate her appearance in the old T&Js fine, as long as one takes into account when these cartoons were made. African-American women working as domestics for white families were fairly commonplace during the 1930’s through the 1950’s, so such caricatures weren’t considered racially offensive at the time. But a character like MTS would never fly with a contemporary audience today, society has changed far too much for such a character to be socially acceptable in any medium. In fact, the character has recently resurfaced on WB’s Tom & Jerry Tales as the Caucasian Mrs. Two-Shoes, who is clearly the owner of the house and not just a domestic. You’re not going to see Mammy Two-Shoes anywhere ever again, any more than you’re ever going to see Buckwheat on TV again, definitely not the “Otay!” version of Buckwheat, not unless Eddie Murphy decides to start playing him again.
So I say lay off of Witch Lezah, and lay off of the criticism of Roz Ryan voicing the character. Nobody had a problem with Ms. Ryan voicing a short fat Muse or a blue whale, so why take issue with her voicing a green witch?

Same Place, Different Name

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Just a quick alert to our readers: Starting today, we won’t be calling our blog site by the name Astral City anymore.

We’ve decided to change the name of our blog from Astral City to Twinsanity. This may seem sudden, but Damon and I have actually been thinking about changing the blog’s name for a little while. We wanted a name that contained the word “twin” because, well, we’re twins. But don’t worry, it’s the same site piloted by the same team, just with a different name. Happy reading!

Pets Over Ponies (You Heard Me Right)

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Brace yourselves, Bronies, I have an announcement that may just shake the very foundation of the world you live on. Here it is:

I think there’s another show on The Hub that I like more than My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

T’is true.
Of course, anybody who regularly follows this blog or my posts on either if the 2 message boards I’m currently on already knows that MLP: FiM wasn’t my favorite Hub show to start with–The Aquabats! Super Show! currently holds that title (it’s supposed to be starting its’ 2nd season sometime this spring–can’t wait!) and I also enjoy Dan VS. to a point, though I think it tends to get a little Pinky & The Brain repetitive and the characters aren’t especially likable (and don’t get me started on the horrible scheduling). The Ponies’ show used to be a close third, but recently another show has risen to challenge MLP for its’ bronze medal. The show in question? Littlest Pet Shop.
First, a brief history lesson (a.k.a., the boring stuff you need to know):
Hasbro manages the intellectual properties of both Blythe (a fashion doll originally released in 1972) and the Littlest Pet Shop toy line (introduced in 1992). Originally held by Kenner Products, both were transferred to Hasbro, years after acquiring most of Kenner’s assets.
As of November 2012, two modern incarnations of Blythe are on sale: One, introduced in 2001 as a standalone toy line, is managed by Tomy (after merging with the original licensee Takara in 2006) and CWC (both companies licensed from Hasbro), sold in parts of Asia, and marketed towards collectors. The other, marketed towards children that was released in 2010, is managed by Hasbro as a part of their 2004 incarnation of Littlest Pet Shop, known as Blythe Loves Littlest Pet Shop.
The series was first green-lit in 2011. During production, Blythe Loves the Littlest Pet Shop was also used by Hasbro as the working title of the TV series. The production staff of the series includes developers Timothy Cahill and Julie McNally Cahill of My Gym Partner’s a Monkey fame, along with Dallas Parker and Joel Dickie. Writers M. A. Larson and Cindy Morrow, who previously wrote episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, also wrote the scripts for the episodes of this series. The songs and music of the entire series were composed by Daniel Ingram and Steffan Andrews.
-OK, with that out of the way, here’s an overview of the show.
Blythe Baxter is a teen/tweenage (her exact age has yet to be revealed, but I presume she’s somewhere around 12 to 14) aspiring fashion designer (you can tell she’s a little fashionista because she sports a different hairstyle and outfit in each show, she is a fashion doll, after all) who’s cheerful, loyal, always tries her best, is cute, sweet and always willing to help others, though she’s a little mishap and comical misadventure-prone. Blythe and her requisite oblivious and embarrassing goofball father, airline pilot Roger Baxter (Blythe’s mother is MIA, but more on that later) move from their home in the suburbs to an apartment in Downtown City, a fictionalized version of New York City, only much cozier and without the crime, poverty, graffiti, gang violence and urban blight. Said apartment just happens to be located above a small pet shop, called appropriately enough, Littlest Pet Shop, a day camp for pets of all kinds. After hitting her head after riding down a dumbwaiter in one of those aforementioned wacky escapades, Blythe discovers she has somehow broken the communication barrier between man and animal, meaning that she can now communicate with animals and when the pets talk to her, it comes out as perfectly understandable English instead of unintelligible critter-speak which is how it sounds to everyone else. Blythe gets a part-time job working in the shop and assisting the shop’s owner, the delightfully dotty Mrs.Twombly. This newly forged alliance leads to all sorts of crazy fun. The pets themselves are a unique and colorful (as in not always typically found in nature) bunch; each one has their own quirk, talent, passion or obsession that he/she specializes in:
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  • Zoe Trent is a purple Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (of course she’s no mere dog) whose passions are singing and looking fabulous. She’s a full-tilt diva (she even wears a hat).
  • Vinnie Terrio is a deep-voiced and somewhat thick Northland Green Gecko whose passion is dancing. He’s got some moves, though his routines often end with him flat on his face. (Give yourself a gold star if you noticed how Vinnie shares a surname with 70’s Dance Fever host Denny Terrio, the man who supposedly taught John Travolta how to dance.
  • Penny Ling is a small, super-cute, somewhat shy and very girly female white and purple Giant Panda who is a rhythmic gymnast. She is talented with twirling ribbons but is hyper-sensitive, falling to pieces so fast that onlookers risk getting hit by the shrapnel.
  • Minka Mark is a hyper and somewhat spazzy pink Spider Monkey talented in abstract art, which mainly involves splattering paint all over the canvas (hey, it worked for Jackson Pollock). She’s easily distracted by shiny objects, food and pretty much anything else.
  • Pepper Clark is a fast talking and shtick loving grey-and-white skunk whose passion is comedy, largely of the custard pie and floppy shoe variety. She also has the unique ability to alter her scents from pleasant to repugnant, depending on what the situation calls for and/or how funny it is.
  • Sunil Nevla is a timid and neurotic Indian accented teal-blue colored banded mongoose whose aspirations are parlor magic and psychic abilities, which he practices with more enthusiasm than polish. (He reminds me a bit of Raj from The Big Bang Theory, only Sunil’s able to talk to girls).
  • Russel Ferguson is an intelligent and organized orange-brown hedgehog (no, he’s not the fastest thing alive!) who’s the brains of the group. He’s a little uptight and overly meticulous, but lets loose once in a while.
In addition to her adventures with the Pets, Blythe also has her own stories revolving around her trio of friends from her new school: Sue Patterson, the jock, Youngmee Song, the brain, and Jasper Jones, the boy. She also has to contend with the requisite snooty rivals, twin sisters Whitney and Britney Biskit, your garden variety rich shallow preps obsessed with fashion and who punctuate their sentences with “like”s, whose dad own the city’s rival pet store, Largest Ever Pet Shop. The Biskits are easily the most cliched and tiresome characters on the show, but thankfully, they don’t appear every week.
Each episode typically consists of an A plot and a B plot running simultaneously, and the 2 plots occasionally intersect. The designs on both the pet and human characters alike are big on cute, with all of the characters sporting huge eyeballs and large heads, and the show is also peppered with pop songs.
OK, I know what you’re thinking: you like THIS more than the Ponies? Well, I have to say yes, I do. Why? For one thing, LPS actually has people in it. I know that’s superficial, but I tend to gravitate more towards shows with human protagonists and all or mostly human casts. On that note, another reason I like LPS is because the animals act like and are treated like, well, animals. The Pets talk (to Blythe, anyway) and occasionally walk like humans, but for the most part they remain close to the real animals they supposedly represent. The Pets occasionally don scraps of clothing and the like, but the anthropomorphism is never carried to the creepy extremes like it is on shows like Arthur. This works for someone like me, who’s not a huge fan of anthropomorphism, at least not when it’s overdone. Another reason why I favor  LPS is because it has no pretense or delusions of grandeur; it doesn’t try to be anything more than what it is: a cute little toyetic comedy cartoon. It never tries to do anything grand or epic like MLP frequently does, particularly at the beginning and ending of each season. There are no magic kingdoms on LPS, but there’s plenty of slapstick to be had. For anyone who wonders or wants there to be some deep analysis behind Blythe’s newfound power or some major ramifications thereof, I would refer you to the last verse of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 theme song: “Just repeat to yourself ‘It’s just a show, I should really just relax’.”
While most of the characters on LPS are appealing and the stories cute and entertaining (and Mrs. Twombly gives the performance of a lifetime), it’s not all gravy. I do have some gripes with the show. For one thing, the Pets flit around the screen so rapidly that it’s hard to keep track of them all at times, though this is becoming less of a problem as episodes progress. Also, I’d like to see Blythe’s friends do a little more; as things stand currently they’re little more than props for the most part. And it’s clear to me that the writers don’t really know what to do with the Biskit Twins. Aside from how their characters generally don’t make any sense (they’re more super-rich kids who slum it with the ‘regulars’ in public school for no logical reason), they don’t work as antagonists for the simple reason that they have no reason to antagonize Blythe other than they’ve been designated as the show’s villains. Yeah, their dad owns the rival shop, but this is barely touched upon in the show and since the Twins don’t give a wet slap about work anyway, it makes no difference. Since they’re ineffective as baddies and it’s clear that the writers don’t want them to be buds with Blythe and company, they just have these characters around but really don’t know what do with them. I know it’ll never happen, but I’d like to see them transfer to a private school or otherwise pull a Houdini at the end of the season.
But by far my biggest complaint about the show concerns Blythe’s mother, namely she has none. Is she alive? Is she dead? Divorced? Where is she? There’s absolutely no reason for Blythe’s mom to be a no-show. While I hate that they also employ the Missing Mom trope on Transformers Rescue Bots, I at least understand why they do it on that show: because it’s aimed primarily at young boys, and few boys would willing buy a Transformers toy piloted by a mom; they probably only have girls on TRB because they’d get in trouble with feminist groups if they didn’t. (It’s also worth mentioning that Cody’s friend Frankie on the show doesn’t have a mother either. So what’s your beef with moms anyway, Hub, you mother-hating pricks?!)
But those little nitpicks aside, I can still enjoy Littlest Pet Shop. It is my hope that the show will thrive, find its’ own audience and finally break out of My Little Pony‘s shadow. Just let it do what it does, and wash over you like a warm mist. It won’t change your life, but it’ll keep you entertained for a half-hour.

Looking Ahead – The Future of Astral City

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Greeting, all.

Since this is the first article here for the year 2013, and there don’t seem to be any notable topics to discuss here at the moment, I thought that I would talk about what plans myself and Damon have for the new year and for this site.

No major surgery is needed here. My chief concern is that Astral City has gotten kind of angry as of late, and I blame no one but myself for that. The truth of the matter is that Astral City is not a public discussion blog. At least, not anymore.When Damon and I started AC three years ago, it was supposed to be a fun site where we would discuss fun things with the friends that we made on Toon Zone.net. However, things have changed since then. At the end of 2010, the year that AC was launched, I was kicked off of the TZ forums  and I think that a lot of the dirty laundry that I had from being on TZ spread out over here, which wasn’t my initial intent (would it be nice if I were allowed to post on the TZ forums again? Sure it would.

Originally, our blog was open for comments by the viewing public, and while there were some intelligent commentaries made by a few members, many of the comments were from forum trolls who used the comments section solely to insult us with flame bait that wasn’t connected in any way to the articles’ topics. It had reached the point where we were forced to delete all but 1 or 2 of the comments, which I wouldn’t have minded so much, except that the trolls were the only people posting regularly. So we figured that if the hecklers and trolls were the only people leaving comments, then we don’t need to have comments at all. We then disabled the comments section, and it’s been that way ever since. As usual, it’s a couple of jackasses who have to ruin it for everyone else. I’ve thought about allowing comments again, but honestly, I don’t see any way of doing that which won’t once again leave us open for attacks by trolls and haters. So sorry, but comments will still be disabled. The truth of the matter is that Astral City is not a public discussion blog. Not anymore. We tried doing it that way, and it didn’t work out. So now AC is a release for myself and for Damon; it’s somewhere where we can discuss whatever we want any way that we want, without getting leaned on by forum moderators and without having to take abuse from trolls and haters. If I believed for even a moment that we could allow comments again without the blog getting trolled routinely, I would allow them again, but I just don’t see that happening.

My only real goal for AC is to make the blog a friendlier place and to keep the articles generally upbeat and fun. I’ve thought about creating a private blog so if I ever need to vent or just get something off of my chest, I can do it there and not here.

Also, both Damon and myself have thought about gradually moving away from the message board type of thing entirely and doing something a tad more creative on the internet. Because I’m a creative person; I’m an artist and a writer and as such, I know that I can do more on the internet than just rant about stuff. I’d like to do something along the lines of Rifftrax or Game Grumps for cartoons. More recently, we’ve had this idea about doing what The Aquabats did for music, only with comedy and animation. I’ve thought about doing internet reviews, but there are plenty of those already. I’d also like to make some webtoons, as I’m full of ideas. Of course, I’ll need to learn some new skills such as editing and the like in order to accomplish this, but I can always learn. After all, I’ll only be 44 next month.