Behold this ad for Blur, the badass racing video game that tried to make a name for itself by taking a thinly veiled swipe at the “lame” Super Mario Kart series by proclaiming “Race Like a Big Boy”, as if to say, “We’re the mature alternative to Mario Kart”, meant to appeal to the type that think being “edgy” and “X-TREME!!!” equal being mature. Basically, an insecure juvenile’s idea of maturity.
Fast-forward to now, where the Mario Kart titles continue to sell millions of copies, whereas most people have completely forgotten about Blur. The irony here is obvious: many people who viewed this spot said they’d rather play the cutesy, squeaky-clean parody game in this spot than the actual game it was advertising, plus the ad managed to tick off a lot of Mario Kart fans, not a good idea if you want them to try your game. (BTW, anybody who thinks that Mario Kart is “about making friends” has clearly never played the game; one well-placed blue tortoise shell or lightning bolt could cause a severe rift between players, if anything Mario Kart could end a friendship as easily as it could perpetuate one.)
The same fate befell game mascots Croc…
…And Ty the Tasmanian Tiger…
…Both of whom attacked other, more popular game mascots in their ads, only to promptly vanish into obscurity.
“Man, I, like, y’know, never heard of those cats!”
What’s the lesson to be learned here? If you want your potential video game franchise to be long running and successful, then don’t attempt to slam other games in your ads. That only worked for Sonic the Hedgehog, and look at him now. Better yet, look at him 15 years ago.
If you try to put yourself over other games, you’ll end up harder to find than this guy:
Today’s 2 Funny is a favorite segment from Animaniacs. The Warner Brothers and their sister Dot take on rabid fanboys. I keep this foundation and its’ name in mind whenever I’m confronted by hardcore fans who obsess over fictional romances and people who think that fun kids’ cartoons need to become more “adult”.
Anyone who regularly interacts with fans, be it in real life or on the internet via message boards or social media sites, knows at least 1 fan like the geeks in this segment, and if you don’t, then you are that geek.
I’ve gotta blow off some steam, so today’s entry is going to be a little different. There isn’t going to be one specific subject here, I’ll just be popping off about various things in popular media which have been annoying me lately. Bear with me as I get this off my chest.
ENOUGH OF THIS! I’m sick of Superman and Batman butting heads all the time. For that matter, I’m tired of heroes fighting heroes in general. It’s been done to death, it’s played out and beyond tired. (Yeah, I’m still planning to see Captain America: Civil War, but I’m still sick of this trope.) I wasn’t crazy about the many cheesy fanfics which came from the Batman/Superman Adventures episode “Girls’ Night Out”…
…But one thing I did like about episode was that Barbara (Batgirl) and Kara (Supergirl) hit it off instantly and became fast friends; they didn’t spend half the episode at each others’ throats. There used to be a time where Supes and Bats got along, can we go back to that, please?
Super Best Friends Forever!
While we’re on the subject, isn’t it high time we stopped using Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns as the default template for how to write Batman and Superman? Let me clue you in on something: Frank Miller is an overrated hack! DC needs to drop his style ASAP. And please, please, take Zack Snyder of off Justice League and any future DC movies. Lose David S. Goyer too. Why would you hire a guy who hates superheroes to write your superhero movie?
“You done f***ed it up!”
-I’m sick of the X-Men stories. They all follow the same bleak, dark pattern: if they’re not about mutants being persecuted, they’re about some Big Evil threatening to destroy everything. “There’s a war coming.” Is there ever NOT a war coming?? Learn a new tune already!
By the way, Quicksilver and Mystique were never X-Men, and Cyclops is Havok’s older brother, not his younger brother. As long as you’re retconning stuff, Fox, fix that. And I hate the Mohawk on Storm.
-Speaking of, I can’t stand how we only have Quicksilver in the X-Men movies and not Scarlet Witch. I get that it’s likely a contractual/legal rights things, but Pietro without Wanda is like Sonny without Cher; it’s just wrong. And I’m still pissed over Quicksilver dying in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Not only was it unnecessary (it mainly happened because Joss Whedon has a boner for killing off main characters), but Pietro went out like a punk and it made no sense. A guy who can run faster than the image can register on a person’s eyes should be able to dodge a few bullets. Why didn’t he just go into that hyper-speed mode where he’s moving so fast that everything around him appears frozen and just flick the bullets out of the way? Logically no one had to die there. (Yeah, I know that was a different movie and a different version of the character. You know what else? I don’t care! That scene still ticked me off.) You don’t have one twin without the other. You just don’t.
“You done…well, you know!”
-I have just one thing to say to The Simpsons: Just end already! You’ve made yourselves an American TV institution, now bow out before you become any less relevant. We can’t miss you if you don’t go away.
-Audience Network, can you please acquire some comedy series which aren’t romcoms about white peoples’ sexcapades? Surely there are other things to make shows about besides just attractive Caucasian people trying to find love in New York or put the zing back in their marriage? Also, can we get something else on TV besides critically-acclaimed dramas? I have nothing against those, but they’re not my thing. What happened to zany, alternative comedies? Why can’t we get a new show like Mr. Show or Stupidface or The Kids in the Hall or Mystery Science Theater 3000 or The Captain and Casey Show? I mean, Togetherness? Seriously? Do we really need a TV-MA version of thirtysomething??
-African-American actor/comedians, knock it off. Enough taking some popular genre film and inserting stereotypical black people in the lead roles. It’s like that fortune cookie game ‘In Bed’, just instert ‘…With Black People’. The Haunted House movies? Just Paranormal Activity…with Black People. Fifty Shades of Black? Just Fifty Shades of Gray…with Black People. (Speaking of which, the whole “You wanna argue? Like white people? I prefer the black way” routine? Really, Marlon Wayans? It’s the 21st century and we’re still doing “white people be acting like this and black people be acting like that” routines? Haven’t we evolved beyond this minstrel show crap by now? I personally feel that constantly pointing out the difference between the races only widens the chasm between them.) Meet the Blacks? Just The Purge..with Black People. Stop this. For that matter, can we stop with shows like black-ish and slave movies as well? I long for the day when we can get TV shows and movies starring African-Americans where their being African-American isn’t the premise or the gimmick.
Yesterday, the long-awaited and much talked about reboot of The Powerpuff Girls made its’ nationwide debut on Cartoon Network (though clips and snippets of the show have been leaked across various places on the net prior to that). Let’s examine what’s changed in Townsville since the Girls’ original series ended in 2005.The Girls sport slightly modified designs; Bubbles now sports barrettes in her hair, Buttercup now has a cowlick and Blossom has a more rounded bow.
The titular heroines have new voice actresses: Amanda Leighton voices Blossom, Kristen Li voices Bubbles and Natalie Palamides voices Buttercup.
The Girls are a little older this time around, attending elementary school rather than kindergarten.
The series sports a new opening title sequence and a new theme song, “Who’s Got the Power?”, performed by Tacocat.
And of course, as is the natural order of things, 90’s kids who grew up with the original PPG series are losing their collective shit over this reboot.
Predictably, the Retro-Snobs and 90’s brats are relentlessly trashing this new version of PPG, shouting the rallying cry of the stupid and falsely entitled:
“CHILDHOOD RUINED!”
So your childhood’s ruined now, eh? How, exactly? How has this one new iteration of a children’s cartoon show that wasn’t made for you and that you’re not required by law to even look at ruined your childhood? ‘Splain this to me. The producers of this show didn’t travel back in time to mess with you when you were a kid, nor has Cartoon Network locked away any and all copies of the original PPG into their vaults vowing to never release them and are forcing us all to accept this new iteration as the One True Canon, so precisely how has your childhood been ruined, Precious?
The following are actual quotes of reactions to the PPG reboot:
“Sorry, but it turns out to be a really cringey cartoon with terrible jokes on the same level as Teen Titans Go!”
Were we watching the same cartoon? Because I’ve seen both shows and I didn’t get a TTGO! vibe from this at all. This new PPG series does have something in common with TTGO!, though; the fact that the new series tends to cloud fans’ memories of the original. It amazes me how people seem to remember the original Powerpuff Girls as being this serious action cartoon when it was never that. News flash: PPG has ALWAYS been a comedy! So how is the reboot insulting the franchise by having comedy in it? The PPG reboot didn’t remind me of TTGO! We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one.
“I’d enjoy this new show more if it had the original theme song and the original voice actors.”
TRANSLATION: It’s not a carbon copy of the original series, so I hate it!
In regards to the intro, PPG’s producers most likely gave the reboot a new theme song and intro so that kids would know that these are new episodes. If CN had just recycled the original opening title sequence, kids would likely have seen it, thought “Geez! These are just the same old reruns that I could see anytime on Boomerang!” and switch it off. In regards to the new voice actors:
People SERIOUSLY need to stop having puppies over the fact that the original voice actresses have been replaced for this show. For whatever reason, it happened, and guess what: the planet hasn’t spun off its’ axis as a result. The Powerpuff Girls are voiced by different actresses now, deal with it, nerds. For anyone who’s still butt-raged about the new PPG voice actors, I suggest you read this.
And then there’s this gem from a YouTube commentor in response to the new theme song:
“I feel like killing myself sometimes.”
Seriously, dude? After reading this sentence, I wanted badly to drop kick this loser to someplace with some actual pain and suffering. If the theme song to a kids’ cartoon show is enough for you to contemplate suicide, I’m surprised that you haven’t offed yourself a long time ago. If you’re that resistant to change, I’m guessing that people had to talk you down off of a roof when Google changed it’s font.
People are also wanking on the show because the producers aren’t bringing back all of the original villains! (Blasphemers!) Several of the episodes deviate from the old show’s formula! (Why, God, Why?) The Girls use cellphones! (GASP!) And…horror of horrors…
In one episode they were shown to be fans of a BOY BAND!!!
“OH, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOES!!!!!!”
Allow me to address each of these heinous crimes individually:
Regarding the story structure: I don’t mind this because the standard “The City of Townsville/And the day is saved!” formula was, quite frankly, getting a little old. Nothing wrong with a little variety here and there.
Regarding the cellphones: it actually makes sense, given that the Girls are the protectors of Townsville, as such, they can be called into action from anywhere at anytime, so it’s only logical for each of them to have a mobile device as opposed to just one single land-based hotline. Besides, it’s really not that unusual, since kids play with tablets. Lots of kids these days own a portable electronic device of some kind. The reason why you never saw anyone using a hand held mobile device in the 1990s show was because hand helds weren’t a thing back then. Yeah, there were cell phones, but they hadn’t progressed to the point that they are now.
Regarding the boy band episode: Yeah! How dare those writers depict these young girls doing things that plenty of young girls do! The nerve! Let’s just tar and feather the sods!
The thing that these 90’s brats and nostalgia-tards need to keep in mind is that this reboot, like everything currently airing on Cartoon Network, is for THIS generation, not THEIRS. You had your time to be coddled by CN; right now the channel’s target demographic is people who are kids now, not people who were kids 20 years ago. Franchises like Scooby-Doo and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles get rebooted every few years, this is no different. And whenever a project gets rebooted for a new generation, there are going to be some changes. Did anyone honestly think that PPG was going to come back after an 11-year absence without the original creator and there’d be absolutely NO changes made to it? The irony to all this so delicious that it must be fattening. Nostalgia-tards beg networks like CN to reboot something they grew up watching, they do, but since it’s not a 100% rehash of the original, these same wankers brand it a failure, accuse it of raping their youths and declare it not worth watching.
“Its not the same. Oh dear, oh my. All is lost, things will never be the same, woe is all of us 90’s kids and our poor little nostalgic hearts not being satisfied!”
If this new series isn’t to your liking, simply DON’T WATCH IT. If you prefer the original PPG series, WATCH THE ORIGINAL SERIES. Really, CN doesn’t care what you do, since this series wasn’t made for you anyway. Getting back to Teen Titans GO! for a second, I know that TTGO! has now become adults’ go-to reference whenever anything on CN pops up that they don’t like, and I’m no TTGO! fan either, but there’s something these folks are forgetting: the reason that TTGO! stays on the air is because, wait for it….KIDS LIKE IT. I know that’s a really hard concept for some 90’s brats to grasp, but you guys aren’t kids. In the end, it’ll only matter if kids take to this new PPG. If the show does badly with them, then and only then will the bad, bad reboot go away.
Personally, what I’ve seen of this show so far hasn’t rocked my world, but I didn’t hate it either. I could see myself watching this for a half-hour (or quarter-hour) and not complaining about it, but at the same time I understand that this series wasn’t made for me; it’s just like whenever 90’s kids hear me say that I wasn’t a fan of Hey, Arnold!: the show didn’t appeal to me personally, but I was already an adult in the 90’s, so I was too old for it. Plus, I generally prefer zanier cartoons, so a grounded show like Hey, Arnold! was never going to do anything for me anyway. FTR, I was a Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, DuckTales, Darkwing Duck and Rocko’s Modern Life guy.
My advice: forget that it’s new. Forget that it’s a reboot. Try to detach yourself from your precious memories of the original. Just watch the show for yourself, judge it on its’ own merits and draw your own conclusion. I give the new PPG a B-. Nothing mind-blowing, but still pretty good in it’s own right and by no means a blasphemy on the original, which, lest we forget, wasn’t always that good, especially the post-movie episodes.
The changes don’t bother me, and I’m personally digging the new theme. Crank it up, man!
The Girls sport slightly modified designs; Bubbles now sports barrettes in her hair, Buttercup now has a cowlick and Blossom has a more rounded bow.
Twin Images 
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