Category What Up?

State of the Site: Mid-Year 2018

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Hey, everybody.

This is just a brief update on what we’re working on here, and what we’ll be working on in the future. No doubt you’ve noticed a scarcity of blog posts here as of late (as in no blog posts at all this or last month….yeah). There’s a reason for that, which I’ll now explain; Damon and I are getting tired of blogging. We started this blog back 2010, back when we were calling it Astral City, and after doing this for 7 years, we’re both just ready to move on from text posts and start doing something else. I know that we started new miniseries (Pop Dream, What The Funny) back in June, as well as starting a new segment (Brain Candy) back in May. I thought that after taking a break from blogging last winter for personal reasons that I would be able to just go back to business as usual, but I couldn’t. The passion, that initial spark just isn’t there any more. As hard as I tried, I just can’t make myself enthusiastic about blogging anymore. Damon and I want to make material akin to that of Phelan Porteous, Allison Pregler, James Rolfe, Andre Meadows, Bob Chipman, Tony Goldmark and Charlie Callahan, and we simply can’t do that with just a blog. We want to make the content here bigger, wilder and more visual, and text and still images alone just isn’t cutting it anymore. We’ve been wanting to evolve this site beyond just being a blog for some time now, and it looks as though that may be happening sooner than we initially planned. The future of Twinsanity isn’t text posts, it’s videos.

Yeah, we’ve been talking about making videos on and off for a while now, but now we’re actually in the early stages of making this a reality. I won’t say that I won’t ever blog again, since I can’t predict the future, but I won’t be blogging as consistently as I’ve been doing these past few years. I’ll type another blog post when I type another blog post. I can’t promise any more than that. Now, I’ll address some questions that some of you may have regarding this news.

What will the videos be about? 

In the videos, we’ll be covering pretty much the same topics that we’ve been blogging about.  As previously stated, Twinsanity will still be comedy focused, cartoon focused and geek culture focused. That won’t change. Of course, since video is a different art form, it won’t be exactly the same. The biggest difference will be that for the first time, Damon and I will appear on screen. As for the regular/recurring segments such as Cartoon Country, Talkin’ Nerdy, Nerdvana, The Retro Bin, The Cartoon Couch, Toon Adjacent, TV Special Showdown, etc., we plan to continue doing those, only in video form.  One earlier segment, 2 Funny, will return, except this time it will be all original content made by us instead of “Hey, look at this funny video we found.” There will also be new segments that simply can’t be done as blog posts (this is one reason why we want to grow Twinsanity into a full blown website).

When will this happen?

I don’t want to put an exact date on it, since there’s still stuff that we have to do (write scripts, edit, buy the necessary equipment, create a YouTube channel, etc.) before we can upload videos, but ideally, We’re hoping this will start in early 2019.

What’s going to happen to this site? 

Once we start uploading videos, the site will have a new look and a new theme, but the address will stay the same, so you won’t have to memorize a new URL. I’d like for the updated site to have a blog section or blog archive where we can store the older content and type some new blogs. Of course, the blog posts will be text only, since the visual stuff will be done as videos.

We’ll keep you updated on our progress so you’ll know what’s happening with our plans. We both appreciate you sticking around after all this time. Blogging was enjoyable, but sometimes you need to try out something new. I know that you liked the older stuff, but the new stuff will be better. Trust us.

Jonesin’ For Brain Candy

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We were looking over some of our earlier posts and we noticed that our most recent Highly Opinionated post was Confessions of a Superman Fan, which was written by me back in April……of 2016.

Yes, that’s right; neither of us has written a Highly Opinionated in two years. I knew that the last one wasn’t recent, but I didn’t think that we’d gone that long without writing one. The reason for this could likely be because we’ve since retired from posting on forums, and so there haven’t been any opinions or points for us to rant about.

Which brings me to the topic of this post: Recently, Damon and I have thinking about retooling Highly Opinionated into something a little different. Something resembling less of a rant post and more of a stream of consciousness type of thing. No offense to these guys:

AVGN

Nostalgia-Critic

…But the whole “angry critic” thing is kind of played out now. After James Rolfe (Angry Video Game Nerd) and Doug Walker (Nostalgia Critic) broke out and became huge, there then came the inevitable string of imitators and wanna-bes. However, ranting for entertainment purposes is an art and few are it’s masters. These days, we tend to prefer the producers who dare to try to do something different. Likewise, Damon and I have since adapted a less angry, more humorous approach. More zany and snarky then flat out-and-out ranty, if that makes any sense.

The point? I’m getting to that. Much like how earlier we remade Reviews On The Run into Cartoon Country, effective immediately, we’ll be retooling Highly Opinionated and giving the segment a new name. Henceforth, the aforementioned segment will from now on be referred to as Brain Candy.

Candy

Sweet, sweet candy!

Basically, these posts will be our rambling and strange thoughts about various subjects. Like junk food for the mind. They will still be our opinions, but instead of raving about things, we’ll just be musing randomly and pointlessly about stuff that’s running through our heads. We’ll still complain about something if we feel the need to, but that’ll no longer the main focus of the posts. We’ve already got a couple of these in the works as of this writing, so stay tuned.

 

 

We’re Still Here

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Just wanted to pop in to let you guys know what’s been going on here as of late. Since neither of us are on social media (it’s basically here and email exclusively), communication isn’t always that easy. We want to assure you that new material is coming. I know these gaps between posts are annoying; we’re not happy about it either, but we’ve both been really busy and occupied with other things lately. So apologies about these delays, but we haven’t forgotten about you or this site. There will be new posts here soon; we have some in the works currently, and they’ll be typed and published as soon as they’re ready.

Among the things we’ve been busy doing this past month or so is we’ve been learning the ins and outs of video production. As many of you who’ve been following us here for the past few years already know, one of our long-term goals is to transform Twinsanity from a blog to a full-blown website, moving from text to videos, our ultimate plan is for Twinsanity to consist mainly of videos; there may still be the occasional blog post, but those will largely consist solely of text, the stuff with visuals, jokes, skits and cutaways (i.e. Cartoon Country, The Cartoon Couch, The Retro Bin, Toon Adjacent, etc.) will be presented as videos, in addition to some other totally new video material ideas that we’re currently kicking around, among them a revised 2 Funny in which the material will be made, written and performed by ourselves as opposed to just embedding someone else’s work. We’re currently in the process of picking out software programs and equipment, learning how shoot, film and edit, assembling props, costumes, writing up scripts, juggling ideas and everything else that comes with said transition, so if all goes according to plan, the next crop of blog posts with images and jokes and stuff which will be coming out within the next few months or so will be the last of their kind before we make the switch to video production.

To sum up, we apologize for the wait, and we thank you for bearing with us. The face of this site is going to change, but Twinsanity is far from over.

 

Yearly Wrap-Up 2017

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End of 2017

We’re approaching the end of the road…

It’s that time again: our final blog post of the year, where we offer up a brief summation of the site’s activities and our plans for Twinsanity’s future.

As 2017 winds to a close, if I were to try and sum things up in a single term, it would probably be:

Roller Coaster

ROLLER COASTER.

To say that 2017 had its’ fair share of ups and downs is an understatement. 2017 seemed to be the year of Delays and Distractions, as a lot of this year’s planned blog posts had to be pushed back or rescheduled for various reasons. If there’s one thing we’d both like to see happen in 2018, we hope that production will pick up here; we’d really like to get back to a pattern where we’re producing new material here on a fairly regular basis once more. Here’s hoping.

This time there aren’t a lot of new things to report for next year; as of this writing we don’t currently have any new segments planned (aside from the ones which will be made as videos*), rather we simply plan to make more and better entries of the current roster of segments. At the moment we have 4 Cartoon Countries in the works, a couple of Toon Adjacents, a Videots and a Retro Bin. I’d like to do another Cartoon Couch and Jason says he’d like to do another TV Special Showdown, but in order to do either would first require a subject.

We would’ve liked to have done something holiday themed this year, but it just never happened, partially because so many other blog posts had to be pushed back. I had considered doing a Toon Adjacent for Beetlejuice’s Rock-n-Roll Graveyard Revue, but I didn’t get the idea to do it until after Halloween, and by then the entries I had planned for September got pushed back to October. Similarly, Jason had considered doing a mini Cartoon Country of the MAD sketch “Fantastic Four Christmases”, but he was also so busy working on the posts which were delayed from September and October that Christmas came and went before he got to do it. Maybe we’ll get to do those next year.

Top priority right now is to get out the final entries of the current Pop Dream and What The Funny miniseries, so that we can embark on the next series of each, which will most likely be around February or March. In each case, we know what the next installments of each will be focusing on, but we don’t want to reveal them just yet. You’ll have to wait until the current miniseries are finished before we make the official announcements.

We’re still on extended vacation from superhero themed posts, and expect that to continue in the upcoming months. While there may be the occasional cape post turning up once in a while (like the Toon Adjacent “X-Men Infinity??” or the Nerdvana “The Tech Factor”, which was mostly about superheroes), Twinsanity’s primary animation focus will still be comedy cartoons and toyetic cartoons over the action-oriented titles. We prefer comedy over action, that’s just how we roll.

*Regarding some of those aforementioned video segments, among them will be a new incarnation of 2 Funny. It’s still the same basic idea: comedy sketches, only this time the skits will be written and performed by us instead of us just embedding someone else’s works. Another video segment we’re considering is called The Couch; in it, we sit on a couch, watch something on TV and make fun of it. There are other video segment ideas we’re kicking around, but there will still be the familiar animation-themed segments you’ve come to enjoy, such as Cartoon Country, The Retro Bin/Cartoon Couch etc., only in video form. The basic theme of the Twinsanity video series will be cartoons, fun stuff, funny stuff, stupid stuff and geek stuff”.

2017 to 2018

So as always, we’d like to give all of you who’ve been following Twinsanity, liking us, commenting on our nonsense and all a big thank you for sticking around, and we wish you all a Happy Holidays and we look forward to entertaining you with more animation and geek culture themed things in 2018. In the meantime, relax, kick back and pop open the bubbly, ’cause we already have.

sparkling-wines-on-New-Years-Eve

See ya next year.

State of the Blog: Here Comes the New

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I’ll keep things brief. This will be my final What Up? post before I resume production here, I promise.

First, I’d like to thank you guys for sticking with us and being patient. I know the level of productivity here has been kind of an elevator ride lately (as in up and down), so we appreciate your patience as we continue to evolve and refine this thing that we call Twinsanity. The reason I’m posting this is because we’re FINALLY about ready to resume putting up actual posts here again. I’m compiling images and information and writing jokes and stuff even as I type here; I don’t want to reveal what specifically we’ll be putting up right here and now, as I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but those who have been keeping up with us may have some vague idea as to what to expect. I hope to get at least 1 of these new posts up sometime this month.

I will say that the upcoming posts and new segments that we’re working on will be slightly different than what we’ve been doing in recent years; the What the Funny, Pop Dream and Neat Stuff entries (more of which are coming) are an indication of what to expect from us in the upcoming weeks and months. Like WTF and Pop Dream, these new bits will focus on a specific franchise, cast or concept and will extend across multiple posts as opposed to random one-and-done posts like the average Ad Nausea or Talkin’ Nerdy. I’ve been looking for something that’ll stretch my writing chops and contain more detail and finesse.

Does this mean that we’re done producing entries for the established segments? No. It’s just that Twinsanity is a variety blog, it’s always been a variety blog; we try to do a variety of things here to keep things interesting; I’ve never wanted to cover just one thing over and over, I’d just get bored and burned out doing that. The only things I’m actively avoiding here are Highly Opinionated, 2 Funny, anything involving comic book superheroes and the posts which consist of nothing but video embeds with a brief description of them. The former I’ve admittedly grown tired of and would like to move on from, as they represent a period of the blog’s history (and a time in my life) that I wish to put in the past and distance myself from, the other (superhero stuff) I feel like I’ve devoted too much time here to and that just isn’t where my head’s at creatively right now (presently I’m on more of a kick for the 70’s through 90’s Saturday Morning experience, toons–as in the Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Tom & Jerry and Roger Rabbit variety–nuclear families and animals. I don’t ask questions, I go where the muse leads me), and the latter just aren’t as creative or imaginative as I’d like (I try to put my own creativity and effort into everything I do, and just embedding a video didn’t really accomplish that), plus I feel like I’d become too dependent on those, especially in the past 2 years or so. Nerdvana and Toons & Tunes are still OK, provided they contain actual context like the Cooking with Toons, Driving with Toons, Down on the Toon Farm, Wild Cartoon Kingdom and The Future Rocks! Nerdvana installments and the Ewoks/Droids Adventure Hour, ChalkZone and Fantastic Four show openings Toons & Tunes posts. The other segments are still fair game, especially Cartoon Country, since it’s very versatile and covers a lot of ground (Cartoon Country is probably the closest thing we have to a general segment); if I come up with an idea for a new Retro Bin or Cartoon Couch or Beyond the Background or whatever, I’ll most certainly do one, but as of this writing I haven’t been inspired to do a new entry for any of those yet and I’m past the point where I feel like I have to just put something, anything up for the sake of keeping post counts high; Twinsanity just turned 7 as of February (we first launched Twinsainty in February 2010), so after 7 years I think we’ve accrued a comfortable enough backlog of entries in those segments that we can take time off to explore new and different stuff. I’d rather take the necessary time to make just 1 really good, detailed post than grind out a bunch of cheapies; like I’m always saying: quality over quantity.

So while the other segments won’t be going away, right now the stuff from our current mindset, hereinafter referred to as the ‘New Groove’ (e.g. Neat Stuff, Pop Dream, What the Funny and the new segments which will be revealed in time) will be taking precedent; they’re what’s currently in our heads right now, and we’re itching to get those started.

Despite the slight change in style and delivery, the focus of Twinsanity will remain the same: cartoons, comedy, pop-culture stuff, fun stuff and geek stuff. That’s never going to change.

Well, I’m done rambling now. The next post you get from me will be a real post with actual content, images and funny stuff in it, I promise. New posts are coming up very shortly, so stay tooned, but now it’s time for me to….

Benson

‘GET BACK TO WORK!!!”