Author goldstar

Talkin’ Nerdy: The Plight of Lila Test

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Hello and welcome to a new segment on Twinsanity: Talkin’ Nerdy, where we take a cartoon character or trope and devote far too much attention to it. Why do we do this? Because we’re huge geeks. Why else?

Today I’m going to discuss the situation concerning one of the supporting characters on Cartoon Network’s Johnny Test, a series that’s like a zombie that refuses to stay dead. Now, I’ve already stated my opinions on JT in an article during the early days of Twinsanity (back when it was still called Astral City) titled “What’s Eating Johnny Test”, and anyone who remembers that article already knows how I feel about the show; I think that Test is a better idea than a show and I think that Johnny himself is the worst part of his own show because he’s a selfish jerky Bart Simpson wanna be. No, I won’t be talking about how much I think that Johnny sucks. Rather, I’ll be talking about his mother, Lila.

Ah, Lila Test. She’s got a white collar office job and legs ’til Tuesday.
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I stopped watching Test quite a while ago, but in the time that I had been watching Johnny Test, Lila has since become one of my favorite characters on the show after Susan & Mary and the Dukey the dog. Hey, I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for a lady in a short-skirted dress suit. The problem is that Lila won’t be seen for several shorts at a time. It’s hard enough to try to enjoy a show when the title character is the one that I like the least, but then add to that the fact that 1 of the few characters that I actually like is hardly ever used.

Lila is one of my favorite characters on JT, and I dislike how sometimes the writers seem as though they forget that she exists at all. I get that Lila is the “super busy” mom and that the Test house is role reversed (I actually like this idea, in fact) and that it’s the mom, rather than the dad who has the job and who works during the day, therefore sometimes the writers can use her being at work as an excuse for her to not be at home, and I’m OK with that. My problem is the other times where logically, Lila should be around, but will still be inexplicably absent. For example, in the episodes “Johnny’s Sleepover”, “Johnny’s Big Snow Job”, “Johnny’s Trophy Case”, “Johnny Germ Fighter” and “Outdoor Johnny”, Lila doesn’t appear, or even get a casual mention, which annoys me greatly. Lila never appears on screen in season 1’s “Saturday Night’s all Right for Johnny”, but she was mentioned a few times, particularly in Hugh’s love speech to Johnny, indicating that she was indeed home, just off camera. She’s not present at the Porkbelly World Record ceremony in “Johnny’s World Record” and she’s even a no-show at Johnny’s going away party in “99 Deeds for Johnny Test”. It makes it look like she doesn’t give a frag. Basically, it’s as though Johnny Test‘s writers made Lila a workaholic so they can say that they have a mom in the Test family without actually having her there most of the time.

The biggest blunder of all has to be the half hour 3rd season finale “JX5”. In this story, Darth Vegan and his forces invade the planet Earth. The invasion is broadcast on live TV and there still no sign or mention of Lila whatsoever! Where the heck was Lila during all of this? There’s no way that Lila was just having a normal day at work when the entire flipping planet was facing imminent doom! The invasion had nationwide news coverage, fer cryin’ out loud! If just once, Johnny or 1 of the Twins had mentioned their mom just once instead of temporarily forgetting that they even have a mom, then I might have cut this episode some slack, but as since “JX5” almost seemed like it was intended as a possible series finale and the writers managed to find parts so many other supporting and recurring characters (including a plot hiccup where Hugh gets frozen by Brain Freezer and then he never shows up again nor is he even referred to by anyone else for the rest of the episode, thus leaving us to wonder for months whether or not he was murdered*), for Lila not to make a single appearance or even get a mention by anyone was unforgivably lazy.

Now I understand that in some cases, it could simply be a case that the shows’ writers don’t have anything for Lila to do in these stories, but often times, it seems as though Hugh gets shoehorned into many stories, even when it’s just a couple of brief scenes. If Test‘s writers can come up with some little parts for Hugh, then why can’t they do the same for Lila?

I’m not suggesting that Test‘s writers change the shows’ focus and make it Lila’s show or anything, but Lila is a member of the Test family and she does live in the same house as Johnny, the Twins, Dukey and Hugh. It would just be nice if they would acknowledge the character’s existence more than once in a while. She doesn’t have to be prominently featured in every story. She doesn’t even have to have dialogue in all of her appearances. Just have here there sitting around or doing something so that the character’s existence can be acknowledged. But I’d rather Lila be there and not do much than not be there at all. I’d just prefer it if the character would show up, even in brief cameos, than not show up at all.

*It was just like in the 3rd season finale of The Powerpuff Girls titled “Slumbering With the Enemy” where Mojo Jojo steals a conveniently placed bottle of “Antidote X” from Professor Utonium’s lab (begging the question of why the Prof should happen to have that in the house) and takes away the girls’ powers and then they don’t get them back at the end of the episode, so for the next 3 months, we were left wondering what was going to happen to the PPGs and then the new season starts with no mention of the previous episode’s events. It’e like that. I’m just saying that it can bug a guy.

Tooning In On Late Night

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The following is a topic that was raised on the Toon Zone Forums that I’d like to address here. To avoid confusion, the original poster’s comments will be typed in italic, while mine will be typed normally.

For the most part, classic cartoons are non existent on American TV. There’s plenty of channels that air classic movies and TV shows, but we only have one all classic cartoon channel (Boom) and as we all know, there schedule is VERY limited. 

…And even the so-called  “classic” movie and TV channels are showing original shows and movies now. Also, Boomerang stopped being a classic cartoon channel a few years ago. Boom is Cartoon Network’s recycle bin. Beyond that the channel serves no purpose. It’s like I said in an earlier post, the audience for 50s to 80s nostalgia is far too narrow a market for a channel devoted solely to it to work now. In no time, the channel would be re-branded as a general entertainment channel.

I remember watching a slew of cartoons in the 70’s and 80’s that hasn’t seen the light of day in years. Is it really that expensive to get the rights to rooms like Battle of the Planets, Voltron, New adventures of Popeye, 70’s Tarzan cartoon and many, many more? 

Dude, you’re going waaaay back. You’re talking about when we were kids back in the ancient 1970s. Back then, there was no such thing as cable and cartoons shows ran wild all over the TV. You had syndicated programs with umbrella titles such as Bugs, Woody and Popeye, Bugs & Popeye, Bugs & Woody, Bugs Bunny’s Buddies, Cartoon Carnival, etc., but the industry has changed a lot since then. We’re not going to see television return to the way that it was in the 1970s because that world doesn’t exist anymore.

The answer to your question is yes. It is that expensive because like I already said, the industry has changed a lot since we were kids. These days all of the old-school cartoons have been bought up by big corporations. Turner Broadcasting currently owns the Warner Brothers, MGM and Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Casper, Lassie and the like are owned by Classic Media, which was recently purchased by Dreamworks. The Filmation library of shows are presently tied up in legal red tape over who actually owns the individual franchises. And Disney, well, the Mouse House has never loaned out it’s library of cartoons to anyone, and they’re even less inclined to do so now that they have 4 cable/satellite channels under their belt.

I mean if you really think about it, wouldn’t it be a good idea if local stations aired some of these toons late night? It just seems that a lot of these classic toons are just sitting around in some old warehouse collecting dust instead of being viewed as they should be.

That’s an interesting idea, but it would never work now. Not in this market. First, local stations don’t have the broadcasting rights to those old cartoons; most of them have since been scooped up by big corporations and local affiliates would have to pay these corporations a fee in order to run them on their stations late at night. Second, the late night market has become very cutthroat. The old-school toons would have to compete in a market that’s now dominated by Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Conan O’ Brien, ABC’s Nightline and CN’s Adult Swim block. Most people wouldn’t be willing to switch off a new episode of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report in favor of a 40-year-old rerun of Yogi’s Gang or a 60-year-old rerun of The Flintstones. A few adults might, but not enough of them to justify the cost and trouble that a local station would have to undergo to launch such a venture. Third, most of the local stations are also network affiliates who also air shows like Letterman and Leno late at night, and so the local affiliates would likely just air the old cartoons after the networks’ late night programs, thus pushing them back so far into the wee hours that one would need radar to find them. Finally, the other major issue preventing such a move is of course money. TV stations air what makes them the most money. Local stations make more money airing infomercials than they would airing classic cartoons, so they run infomercials. Network officials know that even a rerun of Conan or Family Guy is going to put more butts in seats than old Popeye cartoons would. The cold hard truth is that nostalgia just isn’t profitable right now.

I know that people are tired of me saying this, but I here it is one mo’ time: I think that instead of trying to get these “classic” cartoons back on TV, that we should instead be lobbying for these old-school shows to get proper video/DVD releases. Seriously, like my brother Damon has said, if you had your own kick-ass collection of cartoons that you could watch whenever you wanted, it wouldn’t matter one wit to you what the local stations were airing.

Bringing Action Back

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Undoubtedly, we’ve all heard or read by now that neither Green Lantern: The Animated Series nor Young Justice were announced among returning series on Cartoon Network’s 2013 Upfront. This has lead many fans to believe that both shows are done. Cartoon Network is already getting a lot of heat from some of it’s viewers for giving most of it’s action cartoons the red-headed stepchild treatment; under promoting it’s action series. Canceling most of them prematurely, etc, and this latest news has only added fuel to the fire. Is there any way for action cartoon to start getting some love from cable/satellite kids channels again?

I say the answer to that is yes, although in order to achieve this, it may be necessary for the producers of said action to rethink their strategy/approach somewhat. Here at Twinsanity, we feel that one reason why action cartoons have been getting the short end of the stick as of late is because so many of them are done in a continuing story/saga fashion. I can hear the arguments in favor this technique now: “Continuing stories, sagas, and story arcs are cooler. They give more depth to the characters. It’s more mature storytelling and blah, blah, blah…” Well, that may be true, but the downside of that is that sagas/serials don’t have a very high replay value. Serial cartoons tend to not do well in reruns, which is one reason why comedy cartoons are often looked upon as the favorite children of cable/satellite channels because most comedy cartoon episodes are each a self contained story, so they can be rerun in any order or no particular order and new viewers tuning in for the 1st time can watch any episode without being lost and then having to catch up. Most people don’t want to revisit a saga once it’s finished. They might want to look at some highlights from the past season, but that’s about it. And channels can’t just run random episodes of a serial cartoon because the entire arc’s story line has to be shown in order or else the whole continuity is lost.

Another important issue is finance.. Let’s face it, quality costs mazoolah, and shows like Young Justice and Green Lantern: The Animated Series aren’t cheap to produce. The sad truth is that the shows’ niche audiences and low toy sales don’t justify the cost of producing them. Half of an animated shows’ success comes from merchandising, but unfortunately, kids just aren’t buying the GL and YJ toys. I suppose that it could be argued that CN and the other networks could (or should) be running action shows at night and aiming them at teens and young adults instead, but the problem with this suggestion is a) CN already tried running action premieres at night twice and both times the blocks failed to generate ratings from kid viewers who favored the comedy premieres on Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel, and b) except for hardcore comic book fans, adults aren’t buying action figures and toy play sets based on the shows. The success of Green Lantern: TAS relied heavily on the live action movie being successful, and since the GL movie bombed, there just wasn’t a huge incentive for many fans to tune in to the animated series. Likewise how the Kids’ WB Legion of Super Heroes animated series’ lifespan was cut in half due to Superman Returns, which opened the summer before LoS’s premiere, under performed at the box office.

In regards to serial fashion being “more mature storytelling”, the irony here is that Nickelodeon’s and Cartoon Network’s prime audience demographic is immature, as in kids. Sure, there are the hardcore comic book fans and the cool secular people who’ll tune in, but the networks don’t want to attract just them. They want to kids to watch because kids buy toys, and a show that’s watched largely by kids means that the networks can sell a bunch of over priced plastic toys based on the characters.

So perhaps it may be time for more action cartoon to go back to having stand alone plots and stories. It is possible to tell a decent action story without having a continuing saga or serial story running along. Shows like Batman: TAS, Superman: TAS and Justice League Unlimited have all done so. Sure, there was the occasional 2-parter, but usually nothing more than that

Now, I realize that my opinions aren’t the least biased, as I’m admittedly more of a comedy person than an action. Plus, I tend to get bored with a plot that that takes more than 2 parts to resolve. I admit it; I have a 22 minute attention span. But it just might be possible for action to regain some the attention that was once paid to them by network executives if they were to make thing somewhat less complicated for themselves.

The Aquabats Supershow – Super Wacky!

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Most fans of the Hasbro owned cable/satellite channel known as The Hub know the channel as “That Transformers/G.I. Joe” Channel” or “The channel that My Little Pony Built”. Some others know The Hub as the channel that airs Dan Vs. However, there is one show that currently airs on The Hub which doesn’t get as much press as those shows aforementioned, and one that I feel is deserving of more praise than it receives. That series is a live action campy hoot known as The Aquabats Supershow!

The Aquabats Supershow! premiered on The Hub on March 3, 2012 and was created by former child actor Christian Jacobs ad Bob Schultz (both of whom are also the creators of the Nick Jr. series Yo, Gabba-Gabba!) but it’s worth mentioning that The Aquabats (the band)’s history preceded the TV series. In fact, The Aquabats have been around for a little while now. Here’s a brief history on The Aquabats:

The Aquabats is an American rock band that was formed in Orange County, California in 1994. The band was founded by Jacobs, Chad Larson and Boyd Terry. The 3 friends got the idea to form a joke band that satirized the Orange County punk scene. The idea was to start an unabashedly silly band boasting a happy, positive persona — an antithesis to aggressive and humorless punk bands — with the intention of performing at punk shows to poke fun at the scene. Easily identified by their Lone Ranger masks, Positivity Helmets and matching costumes, The Aquabats are perhaps most recognized for their theatrical persona in which they claim to be crime-fighting superheroes. This theme serves as subject for much of the band’s music and as part of their stage shows, which regularly feature comedic stunts and fight scenes with costumed villains and creatures. The band has gone through several fluctuations and also several members with Jacobs and Larson being the only constants.

Since their debut in 1996, The Aquabats have released five studio albums, two extended plays and one compilation, among other recordings.

The TV series began as a 5 minute pilot called The Aquabats in Color! which was originally pitched to The Fox Family Channel in 1994, but the project was canceled.
Now, back to the present.
Each 22 minute episode of The Aquabats Super Show! is done in a style similar to The Looney Tunes Show, consisting of 1 half-hour story featuring the live action Aquabats doing comedic battle with some formidable, but ridiculous nemesis, intermixed with a funny cartoon blackout starring Li’l Bat, the Aquabats’ mascot, an animated segment (creatively titled “A CARTOON”) via a random miniature TV set that appears in some incongruous location featuring animated versions of The Aquabats (ironically, the cartoon segments follow a continuing story format, while the live action are always a self contained story), and a commercial parody. The latter of which are a staple of the Aquabats’ stage shows.
The series itself is based on the band’s mythology. The Aquabats are a team of costumed superheroes of unknown origin (Jacobs has stated in an interview that the team’s origin is intentionally left vague for the audience’s imagination) who simultaneously perform rock concerts while battling the forces of evil and boredom while traveling around in their souped-up “Battle Tram”, which is much roomier on the inside than it looks on the outside, sporting it’s own lounge, sleeping quarters and science lab. The band/team members all wear matching uniforms, and in the manner of The Tick, are never shown out of costume. Some viewers have speculated that this would make it difficult to tell the individual members apart, but when you start watching the episodes, it surprisingly isn’t. The band’s members consist of:
  • The MC Bat Commander (played by the band’s lead singer, Christian Jacobs, distinguishable by his Zorro-like mustache and his missing front tooth):  He’s the leader of The Aquabats and a self-described “Man of Action”. He’s got the swagger. He’s got the bravado, but interestingly, he’s the only member of the team without a super power. 
  •  Crash McLarson (played by bassist Chad Larson, distinguishable by his being the tallest Aquabat and his bushy eyebrows): Basically a big birdbrained lug who has the ability to grow to 50 feet in size. Unfortunately, he hasn’t yet mastered this ability and so he usually only gets this power to work when he’s extremely mad and/or upset (“GETTING EMOTIONAL!!”). Interestingly, Crash’s animated self seems to be in complete control of his size altering ability.
  • Ricky Fitness (played by drummer Richard Falomir, distinguishable by his trim physique and the braces on his teeth): A reformed juvenile delinquent who’s now all about clean living and fitness. He has the power of super speed. He’s also the band’s “ladies’ man” of sorts, falling for nearly ever attractive young woman he sees.
  • Eagle “Bones” Falconhawk: (played by guitarist Ian Fowles, distinguishable by his long brown hair): The band’s iconiclast and strident individualist who’s full of personal pride to the point of cockiness at times. He possesses a magic guitar which he can fire lasers from. He was also granted a mystical “second sight” from a floating shaman head, giving him the ability to see fairies and other apparitions, as well as the ability to summon an invisible spirit animal, a female eagle known as “The Dude”. But since no one else can see her, his teammates just think that he’s bonkers.
  • Jimmy the Robot (played by keyboardist James R. Biggs Jr., distinguishable by his metal chin plate and his metal hands): Jimmy is an android who was created by The Aquabats (most likely) and is easily the smartest member of the team. He has a computer brain and the ability to fire purple lasers from his fingertips. He’s also the team’s science and technology expert. Ironically, despite his being artificial, seems to possess the most human vulnerability of the team, emotion-wise.

This series mostly reminds me of the old Batman live action series which ran from 1966 to 1968 starring Adam West and Burt Ward, which I didn’t see when it originally aired because I didn’t exist back then (I watched the show 2nd hand in syndication). It’s pure camp and goofiness. Much of what happens on the show is unexplained and is just plain silly, but it works. It’s like a living cartoon. In fact, The Aquabats Supershow is what Warner Brothers’ feeble attempt at a Looney Tunes cape show Loonatics Unleashed should have been; a silly superhero spoof which doesn’t take itself seriously at all.  Any series that can boast not 1, but 2 guest appearances by “Weird Al” Yankovic (one as the U.S. President and the other as a Superman/Shazam knock-off named”Super Magic Power Man”) is OK in my book. Christian Jacobs has apparently wanted to make a series like this for some time now, so I guess that he’s basically living the dream. It’s also worth mentioning that The Hub has ordered a 2nd season of The Aquabats Super Show, which is slated to run this Spring. All I can say is “More power to you!”, guys.

 

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!