Cartoon Country: A Touch of Magix

Back in October, Cartoon Country took us on a guided tour of Superhero City. In that article, we caught a brief glimpse of Magix, you know, that floating magical cloud city thingy which hovered in the sky above Superhero City and was attached to the city by that rainbow doo-dad.

Bifrost

Yeah, that one.

Well today, we’ve been given clearance to take an extensive tour of this unique spot. So strap in, fasten your seat belts, and…

Ever Rainbow

Take it to the Rainbow Bridge!

While the denizens of Superhero City like to refer to Magix as SHC’s “sister city”, resembling a shiny, sparkling pink-and-gold self-contained city housed atop a puffy pinkish cloud which floats some 10,000 feet above Superhero City, attached to the shores and beaches of SHC by the Ever Rainbow, Magix is in fact an outer-dimensional asteroid realm. Magix is also the name of the capital city within this planetoid realm.

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So the capital of the city of Magix is the city of Magix. Confused yet?

As its’ name implies, the asteroid Magix is surrounded by, well, magic. The air around the planetoid reeks of bananas and kumquats (that’s what white magic smells like, BTW; very few people know that). These magical energies are what keep Magix afloat and from falling through the cloud it’s housed upon, magic controls the climate in and around Magix and prevents the city from interfering with or being interfered with by our planet’s ecosystem…

S&G 2

…And magic is what keeps the asteroid’s structures, rivers, trees and inhabitants (hereinafter referred to as Mythicals by scientists with too much free time) from floating off into space. Now, about said inhabitants…

Generally speaking, Magix’s citizenry can be filed into 2 distinct categories (by bureaucrats with too much free time): Mages and Enchanteds.

Happy-cartoon-wizard-with-a-magic-wand-Stock-Vector

Mages, no prizes for guessing, are beings capable of performing magic, sorcery and spell-casting. Mages make up around 70% of Magix’s population, no mystery there, given how the realm is slopping over with mana (or magical energy, as defined by World of Warcraft players with too much free time).

Rapunzel 4

Enchanteds can’t consciously cast spells the way Mages can, but they are no less mystical in their own right. Enchanteds can sense the presence of magic anywhere and possess a strong psychic, almost supernatural connection to nature and animals, as well as innate prodigious expertise in specific fields, skills and talents, which are unique to each Enchanted. You could call the Enchanteds Passive Mages.

Grumpy_Promo

“And janitors wanna be called ‘Resident Stationery Engineers’, but it ain’t gonna happen!”

Common types of Mages include:

Faeries

Fairies, a class of all-female winged hippie hotties…

Pixies

Pixies, basically like Fairies, only smaller, like wallabies to kangaroos…

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Elves, Fairies with no wings and a Y chromosome…

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And Witches, the Gingers to the Fairies’ Mary-Anns.

Winx Fairies

“Though we dress cooler!”

Common Enchanted types include…

Little Tiana and Lottie

Royals, Kings and Queens and Princesses and Princes, basically the blue-bloods. (And that’s not just a figure of speech; if you prick them, you’ll see that their blood is actually blue!)…

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Heroes, or Specialists, who use their great strength, speed, cunning, cool tech and weapons and awesome hair to save the day (Hoo-Rah)…

Heidi's Song 2

Earthers, country dwellers who are full-on into nature, animals, the earth, earth-based activities like farming, baking, caring for animals…and barefootin’ it…

Courtly_Jester_is_here!

Jesters or Clowns, humanoids who live to joke, have fun and make people laugh and smile. (Seriously, chuckles are better than sex to these folks)…

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And Pirates, genuine swashbucklers who can sense treasure from miles away.

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The difference is that their ships fly!

Common animal species you’ll encounter in Magix are magical creatures like Unicorns

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“My real magic power is that I’m DOLLING! (That’s an extreme form darling, BTW.)”

Palace Pets, extremely adorable creatures with the power to calm and delight who live in the gardens, forests and wilds between Magix’s palaces and are often adopted as companions/familiars to the Royals…

palace-pets

“You will succumb to the cuteness. Resistance is futile.”

Dragons

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Enjoy them while they’re in their cute baby stage; they grow to be 50 feet high.

..And Monsters.

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It’s a one-eyed Purple People Eater. Insert your own Sheb Wooley joke here.

Dot

“Obscure joke. Talk to your parents.”

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The monsters and some (though not all) of the witches reside in Darkmoon, a creepy dark forest on the outskirts of Magix. It’s always nighttime in Darkmoon, even when it’s bright and sunny everywhere else, perpetually shrouded underneath a sinister looking moon.

Majoras Mask Moon

Yeaah….it’s probably best not to look directly at it.

Not unlike our world, Magix is presently undergoing an era of Political Correctness, due to many of the previously disparate lands and kingdoms having been recently united under the rule of the Candy Kingdom, after their rulers King Kandy and Queen Frostine having won this decade’s Hungry Games.

King_kandy_new

“Don’t give us that look! We didn’t resort to any underhanded chicanery or hostility! We merely suggested that the previously rivaling factions come together under us and enjoy and era of peace, prosperity, love, luck and lollipops!”

Queen Frostine

“It was purely voluntary, but we knew the other kingdoms would come around to our way of thinking. Gosh, who wants to be fed to the silly old Pain Monster??”

To their credit, under the Candy Kingdom’s rule, Magix has become very rich and prosperous.

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The capital city of Magix. Home to Fantasy Land’s 1%.

If you have enough of Magix’s chief monetary unit, the gold coin…

Wario with Gold Coins

“Cha-Ching, bee-yotches!”

…You can go into the shopping center in Magix’s town square and purchase the latest and greatest magic wands.

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They cost a little more, but they’re worth it. Trust me, you don’t want to buy some cheap knockoff from off the streets.

The Merchant

The few Outlanders who get to see Magix from the inside are often surprised to discover how technologically advanced the realm is. Magix has Spell Phones (they’re like cellphones except they run on magic instead of electricity), Spell-o-Vision, computers and flying vehicles such as Wind Riders.

Wind Riders

Grumpy_Promo

“Hey, your realm isn’t suck in medieval times, why do ya think ours is?”

The Candy Rulers have even started a high-profile, exclusive private school within the capital, the Cloud Tower Academy for Magic and Might.

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Within these walls, Magix’s richest and most privileged young fairies, witches, wizards and heroes-to-be learn their respective crafts and get out of their parents’ collective hair for a few hours, fed by the realm’s finest chefs and taught by the greatest sorcerers in all the land.

Shang_tsung_mk2011

“Yeah, it’s me. I teach Advanced Black Magic and Junior Curses here. It’s part of my work-release program and community service. I’m also under house arrest; if I even think of committing an act of treachery, I’ll be instantly teleported to Hell, or worse, the Deep South!”

Now, you may recall during our Superhero City tour, that originally the rulers of Magix didn’t want us poking our noses around their realm. What made them change their minds, you ask? It took some heavy negotiations and a HUGE donation of lollipops.

Lollipops

When we gave the Candy Royal Family an entire room full of lollipops, they turned over like a dog begging for a treat.

Princess Lolly

“What can I say? My parents are suckers for suckers!”

Talkin’ Nerdy: The Monster Mash: A Rebuttal

Today’s Talkin’ Nerdy is a direct response to a recent video: the latest Vampire Review by Chez Apocalypse internet personality Maven of the Eventide (aka Elisa Hansen), The Monster Mash. (If you haven’t seen Maven’s video yet, check it out first; it’s really good. If you’ve already seen it, we can press on.)

Now, far be it for the likes of us to question the wit and wisdom of Maven; we’re big fans (BTW, Elisa, congratulations on your marriage to Paw Dugan of Music Movies and best of luck to you on your pregnancy, may both of you know nothing but happiness), but if you’ll indulge us, we have a tiny little nitpick or 2 with some of the opinions expressed in this video, and we’d like to submit a few of our own:

First, the matter of Beetlejuice not being a real monster. Really? You don’t think Beetlejuice counts as a real monster? Why not? We think the ‘B’ Guy fits the bill quite well. For one thing, he’s a ghost. For another, he has dark powers, he can perform black magic. For another, he’s scary; in the movie the guy worked as a bio-exorcist. If that’s not a monster, then I don’t know what is.

“I’m not a monster? My neighbors say different! Pfft!”
 
Anyways, Beetlejuice must be doing something right in pop-culture monster lore, since he’s got an imitator: anyone who doesn’t think that Flabber from Saban’s Big Bad Beetleborgs wasn’t at least partially inspired by Beetlejuice is a moron.
Elvis pompadour and Jay Leno chin aside, let’s examine the facts, shall we? Flabber is a manic “phasm” (as in phantasm) from the 7th Dimension who can do magic, is known for his schizophrenic transformations and basically acts as a landlord to a haunted house full of movie monsters. Sound familiar? I actually think the Beetlejuice archetype should become a trend in monsterdom: maybe if Casper could perform magic, he probably wouldn’t be such a wuss.
Casper: Jeepers. I don’t like black magic. the dark arts aren’t friendly!”
Hairy Scary: Kid, from now on I’m gonna start callin’ you ‘Vacuum Cleaner, ’cause you suck so @#$%in’ hard!
*****************
Talking Point #2: why the Phantom of the Opera is so often passed over in Monster Mashes. I tend to think the Phantom gets the shaft so frequently is because when you get down to the bare bones of it all, the Phantom isn’t technically a monster. He’s just a disfigured human. He doesn’t come from any supernatural species or tradition, he has no powers, he’s just a REALLY passionate artist who got the Two-Face treatment and fled to the sewers beneath an opera house to noodle on the pipe organ. Of course, the Phantom has turned up in some Monster Mashes: he was one of the monsters emulated by the Backstreet Boys in their video for the song “Everybody”, and he has a knockoff character in the Monster High franchise, Operetta.

What is with the half-mask obsession? Artists!

But we’ll dig a little deeper (see what i did there?) into Monster High later.

Another character whom we personally don’t think qualifies as a real monster is the Invisible Man. Yes, I know that the Invisible Man has appeared in a number of movies and is often included in Monster Mashes, and sorry, but even as a kid, I’ve always thought that the Invisible Man was lame. He doesn’t have a centuries old lineage. He has no dark powers. He’s just a dude that no one can see. On top of that, he can’t make his clothes invisible, so his one trick only works if he’s starkers. The Invisible Man is just a guy who invented a serum that makes him invisible. How is that a monster? Sorry, Invisible Man, but I have to quote Tony Stark in The Avengers here:

“Everything that’s special about you came from a bottle!”
 
“But,” you say, “What about Mr. Hyde? He’s the result of of chemistry too!” Mr. Hyde is different. He counts as a monster. First, he’s scary; he’s a brutal fiend who murders people. Second, his alter ego, Dr. Jekyll, is a scientist; the Mad Scientist is a staple of horror movie lore. So yeah, if this guy counts as a monster….

…Then so does Mr. Hyde.

Also not a monster in our opinion: the Hunchback. Same principle as the Phantom of the Opera. Not a monster, just a human with a physical deformity.

Quasimoto

“Clam up, dude! I gotta be considered a monster! How else am I gonna get invited to monster parties to score with hot vampire chicks??”
 
Earlier I mentioned Monster High, which features several monster and horror movie types, although it’s clear that they ran out of good or interesting monsters a while ago. Let’s examine some of their leftovers:
Rebecca Steam, a steam powered robot. No. Not a monster. Robots aren’t monsters. Robots are sci-fi, everybody knows that. If we’re going to start counting robots as monsters you might as well throw a space alien in there too. Aliens aren’t monsters either, but there have at least been classic horror movies about aliens. When was the last time you were watching your local horror movie show on your local UHF channel and saw Attack of the Steampunk Robot?
Jinafire Long, a Chinese dragon. OK, I’ll give you that one, although it’s generally only Western culture that treats dragons as monsters. In eastern culture, dragons are wise and benevolent beings revered as gods.
C.A. Cupid, the adoptive daughter of Eros. Again, not a monster. Greek gods aren’t monsters. Do a Mount Olympus High if you want to do the children of Greek gods. Obviously, Mattel realized this, and the character was subsequently transferred to Ever After High. Granted, Greek gods don’t count as fairy tale characters either, but she’s a better fit there than she was at Monster High.
-In the video, Maven states that the Phantom of the Opera is the most frequently overlooked monster in Monster Mashes. If you’re asking us, there’s another monster type that’s even more overlooked and frequently (and wrongfully, in our opinion) passed over…..
WITCHES.
Why are witches so frequently left out of Monster Mashes? Witches are awesome. They can do magic, they’re typically female (so there’s your gender balance right there) and they’re often dead sexy! So why do you see so few witches on Monster Mashes?
One reason could be because Universal Studios never made a classic horror movie about a witch. There wasn’t an Attack of the Witch, Revenge of the Witch, Night of the Witch, Return of the Witch, etc. Note I didn’t say that there haven’t been any famous literary, legendary or cinematic witches for anyone to use, because we know that not to be the case. A popular witch character in folklore is Baba Yaga, there was also the Wicked Witch of the West (but The Wizard of Oz was produced by MGM, so she couldn’t be a Universal Studios monster), and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty (OK, Maleficent was technically a dark fairy, but she was along similar lines). But the evidence speaks for itself:
  • Hanna-Barbera’s Drak Pack had no witch.
  • HB’s Rick Moranis in Gravedale High had no witch, yet they had a Doozer (a Gorgon), Blanche (a zombie) and….whatever the heck J.P. Ghastley was.
  • Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School: no witch student.
  • The Monster Tails segments from Wake, Rattle and Roll: No witch, but they had Catula, Dracula’s cat, who could perform magic and transformations. And he wasn’t a witch’s cat because…?
  • No witch among the House Monsters on Big Bad Beetleborgs, but they did have Flabber, so the producers must have figured their magic user quotient was covered.
  • No witch in Mainframe’s Scary Godmother TV specials, though SG herself was a sort-of witch, or at least witch/fairy-esque.
  • No witches in Rankin-Bass’s Mad Monster Party or Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters.
  • Hotel Transylvania had no witch as a major named character, but there were witches as background characters, working as chambermaids.
  • No witch mascot for General Mills’ Monster cereals, although they have not 1, but 2 mascots for fruit cereals: Frute Brute (who’s evidently not the best speller in the world) and the Fruity Yummy Mummy.
  • No witches on the Monster Bash segments which aired between shows on the USA Cartoon Express.
  • No witch critters on Saban’s Monster Farm.
  • There aren’t even any witch girls in Monster High! (Though they do have a witch teacher.)
Getting back to Monster/Ever After High, they’ll probably never do this since she’s a main character on that franchise, but I personally think that Ever After High‘s character Raven Queen would be a good fit for Monster High. EAH instantly gets props just for featuring Baba Yaga as a character.
That is not to say that there haven’t been any witches at all in modern-day Monster Mashes:
  • The Groovie Ghoulies had a witch character, Hagatha.
  • The Mini-Monsters, one of the regular rotating segments from Rankin-Bass’s The Comic Strip, featured a witch, Jinx, as well as Melvin, the son of Merlin. Merlin’s not really a monster, but he is a powerful sorcerer, so we’ll give that a pass.
  • The “Boo Crew”, a promotional campaign that the Hershey company did for Halloween for about 2 years or so, had a witch among its’ members.
  • Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf had a pair of witches among its’ contestants: Witch Sisters Dreadonia and Repulsa (not Rita).
  • As previously stated, Monster High has no witch, but never to pass up an opportunity to jump on a passing trend, MGA tried to replicate the success of MH with their own doll line called Bratzillas, depicting the “cousins” of the Bratz, who were all witches, despite their group name being a spoof on Godzilla.
“Yeah, I don’t get it either.”
 
-One thing about Bratzillaz: each one had a particular magical power that they specialized in: Yasmina could see the future, Cloetta could change people into anything they wanted, Sashabella could command and communicate with animals, Jade could do love spells, and Meygana had the power to…fly? Um, can’t all witches basically fly, either by their own power or via broomsticks? Isn’t being a witch boasting that they have the power to fly kind of like a human boasting that they have the power to dial a phone?
And I’d be remiss to not mention the 1979 TV special, The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t, in which a witch (played by Mariette Hartley) was not only featured as one of the major monsters, but was also integral to the plot.
Finally, honorable mention goes to the anime Rosario + Vampire, basically a mix of Monster High and a harem comedy, which featured a number of monster girls, among them Yukari Sendo, a bratty young witch.
Rosario + Vampire also sports the character of Mizore Shirayuki, a somewhat stalker-y snow fairy.
Snow fairy? Most likely that’s an archetype that’s more common to Eastern mythology than here, but I kind of wish we had that for a monster type. Mizore is easier on the eyes than Sasquatch.
“Whachu talkin’ ’bout? The ‘Squatch rocks the sexy an’ you know it!”