Hey, guys.

As those who have been following us know, as of this year we decided to no longer post reviews of current shows, thus retiring our Reviews On the Run segments. Well, today we’re pleased to announce that RotR will be returning to The Twin Factor!

But we’re still done posting reviews of current TV shows.

Instead, we’ll be using RotR to review the weirdest, kookiest and campiest one-and-done TV specials, something we’ve been wanting to tackle for a little while here. (Since RotR’s subject matter will be getting more specific, I considered changing the segment’s name, to ‘A Very Special Special’ or something similar, but I kind of like the name Reviews On the Run, so we’ll be sticking to that for now.) We’ll be starting with our snarky review of Hanna-Barbera’s “masterpiece”, Hanna-Barbera’s All-Star Comedy Ice Review. Expect this and other TV special riffs coming soon.

Reviews On the Run is back, babeh!

Undoubtedly you’ve noticed that the name of our blog has changed once again, and more than likely you’re asking yourselves…

Well, here’s the deal: Two years ago, when we wanted to change from the blog’s original name Astral City (a name which we’re never going back to, btw), we wanted to name it Twinsanity. However, when we changed the address, we discovered that there was already a twinsanity.blogspot.com. This was our reaction:

We tried to use a variation of the name. We thought of Twin-sanity, but that name was taken also. We tried to contact the authors of both blogs to try to persuade them to relinquish their addresses to us (since neither blog is currently active; the former hasn’t been active since 2012, while the latter hasn’t been used at all), but were unable to contact either. In a panic, we went with the address twinsanitypop.blogspot.com, an address that meant nothing and one that neither of us are particularly fond of, but we tried to press on as best we could. We even considered buying the domain name twinsanity.com, but everywhere we went the name was taken, plus some of those domain sites aren’t exactly in the cheap zone; we’re not making Nostalgia Critic money just yet. Eventually, though, we just decided that we didn’t want to continue using an address that we don’t like and it just wasn’t worth our running around jumping through hoops trying to secure the name Twinsanity since apparently so many other people wanted a piece of it, so we decided to go with one of our alternate choices. This brings us to today. As of this writing, the new name of our site will be The Twin Factor, and our new address will be thetwin-factor.blogspot.com (don’t forget to type the dash between the words “twin” and “factor” because there’s already a “The Twin Factor” on Blogger). This is the last time that we’ll be changing the blog’s name. we promise.

It’s time to celebrate a meaningless milestone. The very first entry on this blog, back when it was still going by the name Astral City, was posted on February 13, 2010. Exactly 4 years ago today. This means that Silverstar and I have been doing this blog for 4 years now.

It’s Twinsanity’s 4th birthday! This calls for a sexy party!

No major news to report here, except that I might as well use this time to mention that as of this year (2014), we will no longer be writing reviews of current shows. The reason for this is simply out of all the recurring segments that we do here at Twinsanity, the reviews have typically been the least enjoyable for us to write. Our analyses, commentaries, nitpicks and riffs are much more fun to write and are much better executed (as least we think that they are). Another thing is that many of the current shows that are airing now we just don’t have any strong feelings for, positive or negative, so there’s really nothing to say about them. We don’t have to write about every show that comes down the pike. If there’s a TV show, a movie or a web series that we really like and are passionate about, we’ll find some creative way to pay tribute to it, but for the most part, we’re done writing reviews. The reviews that have already been written we’ll keep archived for historical purposes so you the reader can visit them if you like, but from now on, we’re going to focus on the other segments exclusively.

In the meantime, we’d just like to thank everyone who has stayed us for these past 4 years, and know that more good stuff is coming. There’s still the possibility that we may expand the blog to a full blown website with videos. It seems like a crazy dream, but stranger things have happened. For now, we’ll be continuing with the articles and the funny ha-ha stuff. So with that, we invite you to enjoy some virtual cake while we go off and get virtually drunk.

Greetings, loyal readers.

First, we’d like to apologize for the long wait; we haven’t posted a new blog entry since November 11th. Normally we try to publish at least 1 new entry a month, but there’s been a lot of stuff going down for us in real life, add the inevitable preparation for the holiday season on top of that, and we just haven’t had the free time and space to blog the way we usually like to. A lot of the material we had planned has had to be pushed back or just isn’t ready yet, but we haven’t forgot about you guys, we promise there will be more blog entries to come, but since we’ve been so busy lately and have had so little free time to ourselves, it’s likely that this may be the final blog entry for 2013. So while it’s a little early, I’ve decided to post our yearly wrap-up, a summation of what we’ve accomplished this year and our plans for Twinsanity’s next year.

First, as many of you know, the blog went through a very negative and angry phase for the early parts of the year. This again was due to unpleasant experiences we were having both on and offline. It was during this period that we posted those infamous “Point and Laugh” articles, but thankfully you guys voiced your disapproval with them and set us back on the right path. Thakfully, things have lightened up since then: Jason (Goldstar) has been reinstated on Toon Zone (huzzah!) and we’ve successfully managed to get things back on track here, bringing the blog’s focus back to comedy, fun and humorous commentary/analysis on animation and pop-culture. Once again we wish to formally apologize to all of those we may have offended with the “Point and Laugh”s, and offer our solemn promise to you all that we will never make hateful, insulting posts like those again. You’ve stuck with us, and we truly appreciate it.

Also, this year we listened to another frequent request from our readers and re-enabled comments for the blog entries. Things started out a little rocky, but thanks to your cooperation (and Blogger’s Comment Moderation option) we’ve all succeeded in keeping the blog’s comments and discussions civil, on-topic and open. Once again, thanks for following the rules we set out for the comments, guys. Your input means a lot to us. We appreciate the feedback of our followers who have helped contribute to the blog discussions and didn’t just come on here to troll. We’re happy to report that we will continue to allow comments on Twinsanity.

Next, back in late July/early August we (well, mostly me) attempted to launch a second blog called Twinsanity Toons, which would have been devoted to original stories and fiction. After only 2 entries, this other blog was eventually shut down; as of this writing, Twinsanity Toons is no more. Why? It’s not that we didn’t have any ideas for stories or that we didn’t want to share them with you; quite the opposite, in fact, it’s just that Jason was right all along (I really should listen to him more): it’s that a blog just wasn’t the right medium for what we had/have in mind for TT. We want you guys to fully experience our work, and that requires more than just us typing words on a screen, we want visuals, sounds, music, etc. You may have noticed that as the blog entries this year have continued, they’ve been getting progressively more and more visual, with images and embedded videos becoming more and more commonplace. Well, in the coming months we’ve been considering taking this visual idea a step further and possibly expanding Twinsanity to a full-blown website; we’re in the process of securing a domain name and a web host even as I type. We’re also planning to learn the ins and outs of video making: editing, digital design, taking the art and visual aspects of our ideas as far as we can take them. We’ve been inspired by the likes of the Nostalgia Critic, Linkara, Obscurus Lupa, Phelous, the Blockbuster Buster, Rifftrax and the Isle of Rangoon, and we’re both huge Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans, so we’d like to do stuff like that: video reviews and riffs on toons and short films, and possibly even original webtoons. We are working to make this dream a reality. So while Twinsanity Toons may be gone, the idea is far from dead. If all goes well, we can make Twinsanity bigger and better than it’s ever been. (One change has already took place: we changed the template of the site around November. Looks spiffy, don’t it?)

Also, we’ll be dialing back on the reviews in the upcoming year. For one thing, neither of us think we do reviews very well (we seem to do the commentaries, analyses and strictly-for-laughs stuff much better) and for another, some of the most recent shows we’ve devoted full reviews to (Teen Titans GO!, Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., Steven Universe) turned out to not be very good, at least not to us. So we’ll be cutting back on the reviews and focusing more on the other segments.

Finally, I’d like to mention that in February 2014, Twinsanity will be 4 years old. (Also, in this past year–2013–we’ve published more blog entries than any year since Twinsanity was first launched back in 2010.) We may be commemorating the occasion in some way. Many of the established segments such as Talkin’ Nerdy, The Retro Box, Videots and the like will continue, and we’re also tossing around ideas for potential new segments. Among the new stuff you can expect:

• Ad Nausea: Where we look at the oddest and goofiest commercials and advertising characters.
• Beyond the Background: Where we give obscure, unused and less celebrated characters some time in the spotlight.
• If We Made It: We discuss how we’d handle some popular shows.
• Why (blank) is Awesome!: Where we list all the things we love about our favorite characters.
• Wild World of Shows: We catch those unique (or just uniquely weird) shows which have fallen through the cracks.

And if all goes well, in December 2014 we plan to devote the month to Weird Christmas Specials.

So in closing, thanks for sticking with us all this time, guys. We appreciate your viewership and input and hope to continue having fun here with you in 2014, and hopefully beyond. We look forward to another year of Twinsanity. So if we don’t post again until then………