With just 4 more days ’til Christmas, it’s time for another Xmas themed 2 Funny. This one comes from FOX’s MAD TV, an early stop-motion spoof depicting a twisted meshing of Rankin-Bass’ holiday classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and mobster flicks. This is “Raging Rudolph”.
MAD TV would go on to make 2 additional Rudolph parodies: “The Reinfather” and “A Pack of Gifts Now”, but neither of them were as funny nor did they hit all right marks like this one did. “Raging Rudolph” got there first, and did it best.
Today’s Nerdvana is a rock-and-roll masterpiece from the camp classic film Miami Connection (1987 — the year we graduated high school!), about a band of shirts-optional orphans led by motivational martial artist Y.K. Kim who are also a band called Dragon Sound taking on drug peddling ninjas, a legendary must-see.
Wouldn’t it be great if someone made a rock song about exterminating ninjas with the powers of positivity and friendship? Thankfully, someone did. Enjoy “Against the Ninja”.
How is this a Nerdvana? It’s a rock song by a band of karate-kicking orphans about using unity, friendship and positivity to wipe out ninjas? The question you should be asking is how is this NOT a Nerdvana?
We’re about halfway through December, so I figured it’s high time I posted something Christmas-related here.
By now, I’m sure many of us have seen (or have been subjected to) the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ home video release We Wish You a Turtle Christmas. James Rolfe (the Angry Video Game Nerd), Alison Pregler (Obscurus Lupa) and more recently Doug Walker (the Nostalgia Critic) have all reviewed this holiday masterpiece, so we might as well get in on it as well. (If you haven’t seen this video, it’s a legendary must see…a bit like the Necronomicon.)
Here’s an excerpt from Turtle Christmas. The Turtles are wrapping Christmas presents, so they’re rapping.
Oh, I caught it all right; hit me right in the craw. Here is…The Wrap Rap.
It looks like the Krampus has some competition for the title of Scariest Christmas mascot. Excuse me, I’m off to go burn my eyes and ears.
When SNK started their King of Fighters fighting game series in 1994, with the imaginatively titled King of Fighters ’94, it became a long-running and successful franchise, and it’s not hard to see why. In some ways KOF ’94 was SNK’s equivalent to Laff-A-Lympics: a mega crossover assembling a galaxy of favorite characters alongside new ones, from all around the globe. Most characters come from other SNK games, such as Team Italy, which is composed of the three player characters from the original Fatal Fury (Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard and Joe Higashi). The leading duo from Art of Fighting, Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia, are featured with their mentor and Ryo’s father, Takuma Sakazaki, who make up Team Mexico. Team Korea includes Kim Kaphwan from Fatal Fury 2 as the leader of two convicts he is trying to reform (Chang Koehan and Choi Bounge). Team England is a mix of female fighters from Fatal Fury 2 (Mai Shiranui) and the Art of Fighting series (Yuri Sakazaki and King).
The two heroes from Psycho Soldier (Athena Asamiya and Sie Kensou) form Team China along with their mentor, Chin Gentsai. Team Brazil composes of Ikari Warriors characters Ralf Jones and Clark Still, as well as their commanding officer, new character Heidern. The game also features two teams composed entirely of original characters: Team Japan, including badass flame harnessing Kyo Kusanagi, Benimaru Nikaido, a ladies’ man with giant hair who can generate lightning and hulking sumo Goro Daimon; and representing our country, Team USA, was…….
….A trio of jocks.
“La-dee-freakin’-da.”
Yeah, the team representing the United States consisted of a baller, a boxer and a bruiser. I know, I know, but is it weird that I don’t hate these characters? Believe it or not, despite their campy nature, I actually kind of like the Sports Hero team, and wish they could’ve stuck around.
Yeah, I kind of like these guys, like Dan Hibiki from the Street Fighter series, Team USA has a certain doofy charm to them and I can’t bring myself to dislike them, and this is coming from someone who spent much of their time in gym class daydreaming and cracking jokes on the bench. Why? Allow me to explain…
Yes, the idea that the US should be represented by jocks is a tad stereotypical, but I don’t think there was any malice in their inspiration; in fact, I tend to think that SNK meant for the Sports Heroes to be complimentary. After all, not every fad or celebrity or piece o’ pop-culture transcends cultural boundaries (British kids’ favorite Mr. Bean failed to find an audience here in the States twice and an American institution, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, bombed hard in the United Kingdom, though the Brits loved Dallas and Fame for some reason), but just about every nation knows who MJ, Big Papi and Shaq are; star athletes are one of our biggest exports.
“ProStars. It’s all about scorin’ international endorsements and filmin’ weird commercials overseas.”
(Don’t go spreading this around, but I also thought Gretzky’s high-tech hockey equipment was kind of cool, too. Stop looking at me!)
Having jocks represent Americans is a fairly typical trope in Japanese anime. Hey, at least the American team wasn’t a bunch of cowboys from Texas.
“Saddle up boys, we’re a headin’ fer Tokyo!”
Since this may be the first positive press that Team USA has ever gotten, let’s look at each Sports Hero individually, let’s us?
Heavy D! – the leader of the American Sports Team. Heavy D! was designed with the intent to create a unique type of pugilist. He was added to the series in spirit of other boxing characters popular at the time and gained his tall stature to separate himself from the rest of the cast. He was named after M.C. “Heavy D”, a former hip hop artist from the group Heavy D & the Boyz. The exclamation point (!) was added to his name to distinguish him from the Overweight Lover. Heavy D! was once a famous boxer, but was expelled from normal competition due to seriously injuring a fighter during battle. He, Lucky Glauber, and Brian Battler received an invitation to the KOF ’94 tournament, and formed the American Sports Team. His move set includes High-Speed Punches, a Tornado Punch, Energy Sparks, an Energy Geyser and a Cannon Punch. D! has a mild streak of brashness that borders on being outright cocky.
Lucky Glauber – a karate champion who is also a former professional basketball player who is asked by his friend, Heavy D!, to form a team with him in the King of Fighters tournament. Aside from his desire to help bolster his friend’s confidence, Lucky joins the tournament to test his fighting ability. His prototype design was based on the character Hakim (played by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) in the martial arts film, Game of Death. His current design exists due to the plainness of the original though his karate stayed as a remnant to his tribute, although there is speculation that his design was also inspired by Dunk Dream (“Street Hoop” or “Street Slam” on Western shores), a sports game for the Neo-Geo, by Data East. Not suprisingly, Lucky incorporates his b-ball into his attacks. Specialties include Super Speed, an Energy Pillar (creating a pillar of energy with his ball) and Weapon of Fire (setting his basketball aflame with his ki without burning it). Even when fighting, Lucky is always seen smiling around. He is very cheerful towards everyone and likes to fight very much.
Brian Battler – an American footballer. Despite being named MVP of the year, he had a violent behavior and only found pleasure in tackling his opponents. He was asked by Heavy D! to fill in the missing spot to the three man team, to which he agreed. Brian is very brash and kind of a brute. His special attacks include releasing attacks infused with energy, covering his own body with energy and the ability to lift and throw anyone despite their weight. He was supposed to come from an earlier SNK game, Football Frenzy. Early designs of Brian depicted him in more traditional football player fashion, but his final design left him without a helmet and a more “casual” uniform. This was done to make him not look exactly like the character Johnny Maximum in the World Heroes series. Nothing against Mr. Battler, but I kind of wish they had put Johnny Maximum in the game.
The very idea of the “Demon Quarterback” mixing it up with the KOF combatants sounds awesome to me.
The Sports Hero Team’s stage is a slum….
And their signature music is called Slum No. 5 (wow, real imaginative). You’d think that being pro athletes, their stage would be some sort of sports arena…maybe the American Gladiators said no.
Team USA have appeared in 2 installments of the series: KOF ’94 and ’98 (which was a Dream Match). A running gag seems to exist with the USA Sports team, where they will receive invitations to that year’s KOF tournament, only to be beaten senseless and have their invitations stolen from them by another team. This happened to them in 1995, 1997, and 2000 (with Iori’s Team -1995-, the New Faces Team -1997-, and Vanessa, Ramon, and Seth -2000- being the respective culprits), and to Lucky Glauber in Neo Geo Battle Coliseum (with Shermie being the assailant). It is unknown who took Brian’s invitation for Neo Geo Battle Coliseum. To SNK and the other combatants I say: come on, lighten up. I know the Sports Heroes make good punching bags…
“They got knocked out GOOD! They got knocked out REAL good!”
…But let them actually compete once in a while. I’d like to see these guys in action again. The sports gimmick is silly, yes, and pro athletes aren’t exactly known for their mad martial arts skills….
Today’s Cartoon Country looks at the second season episode of X-Men Evolution titled “Walk on the Wild Side”, in which the female X-Men (specifically Jean Grey, Amara Aquilla aka Magma and Tabitha Smith aka Boom-Boom) get fed up with playing second fiddle to the guys, and form an all-female vigilante crime-fighting group called the Bayville Sirens. Shortly after our heroines form their new gang, this happens:
-Not only did the story just randomly jump to Radio Disney for a second, but this sequence boasted a puzzling occurrence which was never addressed. The 3 characters who formed the Bayville Sirens were Jean, Amara and Tabitha, who did so out of frustration (and some unintentionally sexist comments from Cyclops). OK, got that, however, about a third of the way through that little dance party video thing, Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat) and Rogue just show up, and for the remainder of the story the 2 of them are just there, as if they’d been Sirens all along, despite them having no stake in any of this and no participation in the story up to that point. There’s really no reason for Rogue and Kitty to be in this story at all, other than a) they’re girls and b) they’re main characters. OK, we’re not going to offer a logical, canonical reason for these 2 to just arbitrarily join the story? No explanation at all? Just not gonna address that at all, huh? Not even a throwaway line somewhere? Nothin’? M’kay.
Speaking of strange occurrences,
RIDDLE ME THIS……
What is it about this episode that makes so many aspiring authors on the internet want to write fan fiction about it? The last time I ventured onto FanFiction.net, there were literally dozens of fanfics based on or inspired by “Walk on the Wild Side”. In one of them, in retaliation the male X-Men decide to start their own all-boys’ splinter faction called the Bayville Strikers.
Far be it for me to pass judgement on another author’s vision, but I gotta say, naw, that idea’s not working for me, bruh. We don’t need an all-guys’ X-team for the same reason TV doesn’t need a White Entertainment Television. Boys don’t need special representation in what’s already a male-dominated genre. We don’t have to imagine what a superhero team consisting of just boys would be like; we’ve already seen that, several times: that’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That’s Street Sharks. That’s Battletoads. That’s Ronin Warriors. That’s Centurions. That’s Super Hero Squad. I could go on, stop me before I sub-reference again. All-male teams are a dime a dozen, so that wouldn’t be anything special. If they were really going to have a girls’ vigilante team AND a boys’ vigilante team existing alongside of it, then you should just make one team and make it co-ed, which would just be the X-Men.
But that’s just my opinion. If “Walk on the Wild Side” revs your engine, then by all means enjoy the ride. Myself, if I want a Girl Power superhero team, I’ll stick with these ladies:
Twin Images 
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