Wouldn’t it be great if someone spouted totally fake, completely not true words of wisdom and sound advice on achieving money, power, success and happiness, done as a rap number performed by a ventriloquist dummy? Thankfully someone did. Enjoy MC 900 Ft. Jesus with DJ Zero’s “Truth is Out of Style”.
Page 53 of 127
Cartoon Country: “Weaponomics” and “Club Life”
On today’s Cartoon Country, we’ll be giving our thoughts on the latest (as of this writing) 2 installments of the DC Super Hero Girls web series, “Weaponomics” and “Club Life” (a.k.a. “Clubbing”). We’ve just finished shoveling a ton o’ snow that got dumped on out doorstep over the weekend (thanks, Winter Storm Jonas!) so these will be brief and to-the-point.
First, Wonder Woman tries to make the grade in weapons’ class (with Cheetah once again rearing her jerky head) in “Weaponomics”.
And now, for the assorted ramblings:
- So, are the teachers at this school all blind? This is the second time that Cheetah has screwed with Wondy in plain sight, and no one has noticed?
- Why didn’t Wonder Woman just bind Cheetah with her lasso so she’d confess? It’s not like Wondy could get into more trouble; she was already in detention. Seems like a very easily solvable problem.
- So in this universe, Cheetah and Catwoman are buds. Heh. I’m not really a Catwoman fan, but she has a decent design here. Understated, but effective in its’ simplicity. Much better than that thing she walked around in on Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe.
- I really hope that Cheetah will eventually receive the comeuppance that she’s so begging for. This “Cheetah messes with Wonder Woman and receives no punishment for it” routine is starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth.
-Next up, Principal Waller informs Poison Ivy that she must get some extracurricular credit by joining one of those fancy-shmancy school clubs that I’ve seen so many times in fiction but never in real life.
And once again, the ramblings:
- The daisy with a face was cute. I like how ‘un-grounded’ this series is.
- I’ve never been a big Poison Ivy fan, but she has a great design in this series, and I can sympathize with her ‘plight’ here, having never been much of a joiner myself. To quote Groucho Marx: “I’d never join a club that would have me as a member.”
- The Detective Club mentions a landed Kryptonian spacecraft and are looking for its’ ‘female occupant’. We all know who that is. Hopefully this means we’ll FINALLY be seeing Kara/Supergirl on the show.
- Speaking of, Barbara Gordon is still masquerading as Babs the IT Gal. I know they’re going to address her finally donning her cape and becoming Batgirl at some point, I just wish they’d hurry up and do it already! I wonder why Babs doesn’t want to be a hero? Does she not think she’s worthy because she doesn’t have any super powers? Katana, Catwoman and Harley Quinn don’t have any powers either, and they’re students (unless we’re going by Quackerjack from Darkwing Duck‘s rules and counting wackiness as a super power).
- I like how the alien (or mythical/otherwrldly, in Wonder Woman’s case) students have their own United Planets Club; being an outer space/outer dimension nerd, I thought that was a nice touch.
- This is Starfire’s 3rd appearance on the show, but her first speaking appearance. Like Beast Boy, Star has her Teen Titans: TAS voice actor, Hynden Walch.
- Miss Martian is freakin’ adorable.
- Rocking out with the band is THE most interesting thing I’ve seen Katana do so far.
- I really like Beast Boy’s costume here. Where can I get that paw print shirt?
- For once we see Cheetah in a short not being a jerk to Wonder Woman.
- I have to say, though the series’ focus is clearly on the girls (it’s in the title, fer cryin’ out loud!), I do like how the boys are portrayed here. When they do show up, they’re just regular characters, not a bunch of FRIs (Forced Romantic Interests). If we must have boy characters in a girl-centric franchise, I’d rather them be portrayed this way instead of just being obligatory boyfriends for the girls.
- Another character’s design that we like is that of Frost (she’s not called “Killer” Frost here for obvious reasons). It’s a stark contrast to how the character looked on Justice League: TAS; here, Frost looks like a nice version of Icy from Winx Club. If Icy were to do a face turn, that’s probably what she’d look like.
-“Club Life” is my favorite episode of this series so far. More shorts like this (and the eventual appearances of Supergirl and Batgirl), please.
Toons & Tunes: The Super 6 Intro
Today’s Toons & Tunes is the intro to The Super 6, an animated cartoon series which was produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises in 1966, and shown on NBC from 1966 to 1969. The series was DePatie-Freleng’s first vehicle for Saturday morning. For those who don’t know, The Super 6 was a superhero spoof which featured half a dozen diverse characters (Elevator Man, Granite Man, Magneto Man, Super Scuba, Captain Zammo and the less-than-spectacular guitar-riding rookie superhero Super Bwoing, who was typically only called into action when absolutely no one else was available) under the supervision of a cranky dispatcher. The show’s title was somewhat deceiving, as the heroes never actually fought crime as a team; each episode consisted of three 5-6 minute segments, with the introductory segment featuring Super Bwoing and the last featuring one of the other five heroes. The middle segment featured the totally unrelated The Brothers Matzoriley.
The show’s surf-rock style theme was provided by Gary Lewis & the Playboys.
Trivia Time: Captain Zammo, the character who appeared in the smallest number of segments of any of the other members of the Six, had his name changed after his first appearance from his original moniker “Whammo” to “Zammo”. According to Friz Freleng in a [1982] interview, the name change occurred when Wham-O, creators of such wonders as the Super Ball, filed a legal grievance against DePatie-Freleng over trademark infringement. Reportedly, the first commercial to air after the first televised “Captain Whammo” segment was ironically for the Super Ball.
2 Funny: Adam Had ‘Em
Today’s 2 Funny is another number performed by Hanna-Barbera studio’s The Banana Splits that I somehow managed to put behind my thoughts but was brought back to the surface courtesy of Hobbyfan and his blog Saturday Morning Archives. To the Splits’ credit, it’s actually a pretty good song. Just make sure that you’re never on the road when Bingo the gorilla is driving. Enjoy “Adam Had ‘Em”.
Talkin’ Nerdy: AnthropomorphiZm
Today Talkin’ Nerdy takes an in-depth look at an often overlooked minority, a sub-culture of society which doesn’t get a lot of press or attention, but nonetheless is a fraction of the populace that exists and stands out.
I’m speaking of course of the ‘animal people’ from Dragon Ball/Z.
You can’t address the elephant in the room here, because he went to get a snack from the commissary.
Since Dragon Ball‘s debut, these crispy critters have been sprinkled across the population of Toriyama’s version of Earth, yet few of them have ever gotten any major screen time or especially large parts, the exceptions being Oolong and Puar…
A Cat & Piggy Show
…Korin…
…And Shu, the dog ninja minion of Emperor Pilaf, along with his human general, Mai.
Shu looks pretty hot in that costume, Mai just plain looks hot.
Have you ever wondered where these ‘animal people’ come from? What their origin is? I’m glad I pretended that you asked that. I have my own personal theory as to where these ‘animal humans’ came to be; it’s a bit of a crackpot theory, and it’s not canonical, as it relies on Dragon Ball, Hero: 108 and Animal Jam all taking place within the same universe.
Also Waku Waku 7, since the Mechanic of Politank-Z is a dog.
“A dog who’s a cop/mechanic? What sort of sober, drug-free mind would come up with something like that? A regular Hemingway, this one!”
“I have another theory which links the Manhattan Project to the emergence of boy-bands and reality TV, if anyone’s interested.”
Anywho, this is my totally made-up, not true, but it works-for me theory:
In ancient times when the world was block after block of savage, untamed jungle, there were 2 major sapient tribes inhabiting the Earth: humans and animals, who lived together as equals and co-existed in peaceful, joyous harmony.
Peaceful, joyous harmony. We’re full of it.
As time progressed, the humans, i.e., the tribe with the opposable thumbs, began showing off their smarty brains, learning to master tools, discovering fire, inventing the wheel, covering their junk with clothes, etc., eventually creating what we now know as what passes for civilization and migrating to create more modern and technologically advanced cities and towns.
“Well we’re movin’ on up….to the East Side…to a dee-luxe apartment in the sky….”
The animals, meanwhile, stayed in the wild and remained “savage” for the most part, doing the jungle/tribal thing. However, the human and animal tribes stayed fairly close, and in due time, some humans began taking in animal ‘companions’ with them to the new cities, for one simple reason…
The animals were freakin’ adorable!
Since they were living in ‘man’s world’ (and also due to the the strict legal regulations), in time the transplanted animals began to learn to speak the language and adopt some of the mannerisms of humans, thus giving rise to the ‘animal people’ sub-class we know today. While they’re not considered to be of the same level of intelligence or evolution as humans (they can’t vote or own property and are rarely asked for their opinions in polls), they have nonetheless become an accepted part of modern society.
That’s how I’d do it anyway. No offense to Toriyama-San, but I like that idea better than the one of animals just being people with animal features. When anthropomorphism is exaggerated to the point where the animals are basically odd-looking people, that’s where I draw the line.
One final question I’ve always had regarding Dragon Ball‘s animal populace: why are there no animal Z-Fighters?
“We fight for truth, justice and Liv-A-Snaps!”
Can the animal people be taught to manipulate ki? Videl is an ordinary human who learned to fly…
“Just remember to think happy thoughts, dude!”
…So could an animal be taught this as well? Getting back to Hero: 108, First Squad a token animal member, my favorite character on the show, Jumpy Ghostface.
He would wrap his ears around his head like a ninja mask and work your behind with a jump-rope. Don’t laugh.
“I’m a ninja, I’m a Bunny Ninja!”
Not to be outdone (again!), Second Squad also had their own animal warrior, Golden Eye Husky.
G.E.H. has a super-durable body and can breathe fire….
Yet he still had his soft, cuddly side.
(I told you the animals were adorable.)
Personally, I think it would be kind of cool to see an animal kicking some ass alongside the Z-Soldiers.
-But wait, no, that would never work. That would just be ridiculous. Animals can’t be fighters. Can you imagine animal martial artists?
Where the heck was my head??
Twin Images 
You must be logged in to post a comment.