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Darth Fluffy

NP Comic for Saturday, June 11, 2022

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NP Comic for Saturday, June 11, 2022

It appears like she's kind of like imagining herself very much like Nanase, but with her own attitudes and hangups.

The first imagined image in panel three looked nude at first (I guess it technically is) but it is fur covered and has a tail, and large ears, so "I'm a mouse" maybe?

Girl has issues.

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By itself, imagining yourself as a mouse may not be a bad thing.

Dream of being a real mouse to enhance interspecies empathy or become more environmentally aware.

Consider life as an anthropromorphic cartoon mouse like MGM's Jerry and you will discover humerous new ways to overcome your challenges.

But if you want to be the icon for a mult-bilion dollar media conglomorate?  I'm afraid Uncle Walt's claws are already pierced too deep.

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7 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The first imagined image in panel three looked nude at first (I guess it technically is) but it is fur covered and has a tail, and large ears, so "I'm a mouse" maybe?

Girl has issues.

Her fantasy about what magic Sarah had was to turn Ashley into a mouse, back in the start of "Title Pending", so it's not totally from left field.  Your right, girl does have some issues.

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2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

But if you want to be the icon for a mult-bilion dollar media conglomorate?  I'm afraid Uncle Walt's claws are already pierced too deep.

For all his personal flaws, Walt invested his life into the things that constitute the Disney brand. It is after his passing that Disney has grown into the malevolent avaricious beast that it is today. I'm sure you can see the roots ages ago, but there was a fundamental child like sincerity in the shows Walt hosted, he seemed genuinely fascinated by his own projects. Much of their content was educational and entertaining.

In contrast, do you real the show that Michael Eisner hosted? He was trying to play the Walt Disney role, and came off as a smarmy imitation. I believe it's been slide downhill in the decades since he was at the helm.

All that said, I grieved Disney acquiring Star Wars. A friend pointed out that it has gotten better. Yes, they are milking it to death, but the plots seem to go somewhere, and George Luca is not revising the film every two weeks.

I will miss Disney princesses bitch slapping each other in Pixar flicks.

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56 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

All that said, I grieved Disney acquiring Star Wars. A friend pointed out that it has gotten better. Yes, they are milking it to death, but the plots seem to go somewhere, and George Luca is not revising the film every two weeks.

See-even-Leia-doesn-t-want-to-be-a-Disne

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On 6/11/2022 at 10:45 AM, Darth Fluffy said:

In contrast, do you real the show that Michael Eisner hosted? He was trying to play the Walt Disney role, and came off as a smarmy imitation. I believe it's been slide downhill in the decades since he was at the helm.

I saw some stuff hosted by Eisner when I was a kid (looking up the timing on Wikipedia, it would have been "The Disney Sunday Movie" and maybe some of the late 80s "Magical World of Disney"). I liked him a lot at the time (based solely on his hosting), and for many years he was the face of "Disney" (as in, the company) to me, perhaps more so than Mickey Mouse (who I've only ever seen a handful of cartoons starring) and definitely more than Walt Disney (who was before my time). I didn't notice him being "smarmy" but then I've never been great at reading people (and obviously I wouldn't have had any context to know he was imitating anyone). I do vaguely recall him being a bit stiff, but honestly that sort of person/character has always appealed to me.

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1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

I saw some stuff hosted by Eisner when I was a kid (looking up the timing on Wikipedia, it would have been "The Disney Sunday Movie" and maybe some of the late 80s "Magical World of Disney"). I liked him a lot at the time (based solely on his hosting), and for many years he was the face of "Disney" (as in, the company) to me, perhaps more so than Mickey Mouse (who I've only ever seen a handful of cartoons starring) and definitely more than Walt Disney (who was before my time). I didn't notice him being "smarmy" but then I've never been great at reading people (and obviously I wouldn't have had any context to know he was imitating anyone). I do vaguely recall him being a bit stiff, but honestly that sort of person/character has always appealed to me.

I wasn't that much older, pre-teen or teen, but my recollection is that he acted like he was trying to imitate Walt Disney, and in my estimation at the time did not cut it. Disney was far from perfect, and in some sense, because of spin, those revelations about him were hidden from the viewer. We saw a kindly grandfatherly man who (and this part is a real, true positive for him) was genuinely interested in his creative projects. He was invested personally in what he was about.

To me, Michael Eisner as just a fat cat that used his position to place himself as the face of Disney to the public. There were plenty of others more suitable, folks that had been with Disney much longer, including Walt's brother Roy; I'm not sure how aware of that I was at the time, but I was aware that this was a slick corporate type projecting himself, or as Trump would say, 'building his brand'. (Hopefully, we won't see Eisner steaks nor a goofy school.) ((Especially not a Goofy School, I'm sure he no longer has access to the Disney characters.)) He was not egregiously bad at it, just somewhat disingenuous.

He wouldn't be the first, and he won't be the last. Lee Iacocca was credited with 'saving Chrysler' for receiving a government bail-out, because 'we don't want you to go into bankruptcy and default on our tank contract'. Carly Fionina divested Hewlett Packard of their singularly distinctive test gear operation (they were head and shoulders above their competition) and brought them fully into the 'more lucrative' business of (only) manufacturing computers, where they still exist, but do not stand out. Both of these people had of have political aspirations, and both received millions on separation, i.e. Golden Parachutes. In other words, their main skill is looking out for number one. It's not wrong to look out for yourself, but when it's your defining life skill, I think it speaks of narcissism. See political thread for anything I have to say about Mango Mayhem.

But to each his own. If you enjoyed him, good for you.

 

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5 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I wasn't that much older, pre-teen or teen, but my recollection is that he acted like he was trying to imitate Walt Disney, and in my estimation at the time did not cut it.

So if you aren't much older than me, you can't have seen Walt Disney on TV when he was alive. Had you seen reruns of stuff he hosted? If not, how did you know Eisner was imitating anyone?

9 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

To me, Michael Eisner as just a fat cat that used his position to place himself as the face of Disney to the public. There were plenty of others more suitable, folks that had been with Disney much longer, including Walt's brother Roy; I'm not sure how aware of that I was at the time, but I was aware that this was a slick corporate type projecting himself, or as Trump would say, 'building his brand'. (Hopefully, we won't see Eisner steaks nor a goofy school.) ((Especially not a Goofy School, I'm sure he no longer has access to the Disney characters.)) He was not egregiously bad at it, just somewhat disingenuous.

...

But to each his own. If you enjoyed him, good for you.

 

Knowing what I know now about him, I feel a little bad about having liked him so much back then. But it's not surprising; as a kid I had a tendency to take a friendly persona at face value.

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I remember watching "The Wonderful World of Disney", which was after Walt's death, but before he was replaced by any one else.  After about 73 or there about I stopped watching TV, so I never got exposed to a Disney show with a host.

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1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

So if you aren't much older than me, you can't have seen Walt Disney on TV when he was alive. Had you seen reruns of stuff he hosted? If not, how did you know Eisner was imitating anyone?

Knowing what I know now about him, I feel a little bad about having liked him so much back then. But it's not surprising; as a kid I had a tendency to take a friendly persona at face value.

Born in 1954. I saw Walt Disney when the show was still in B&W. Later we made weekly pilgrimages on Sunday evenings to a friend of my dad's who had a color TV. Saw much Walt, was sad when he passed. Did not know of his darker side until much later.

I also recall various Muppets long before Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. They were on Ed Sullivan from time to time, and Jimmy Dean (yes, the sausage guy) featured a Ralph at the piano segment on his show.

My earliest TV recollection is seeing Dennis the Menace when it first came on, because my parents hyped it. Also recall Leave it to Beaver, which featured no actual dam building rodents, and I Love Lucy, which may have been in reruns already. Much three stooges, much Popeye cartoons. I caught Ruff & Ready, but it must have been a NYC station, because when my parents moved from NJ, metro NYC to Philly suburbs, I never saw it again. I recall the debut of Huckleberry Hound, Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Top Cat, The Alvin Show, Lost in Space (started out good, but quickly got silly), The Addams Family, Probably more if I thought about it. I was a bit late with Star Trek, picking it up about the third episode.

How many years apart are we?

Michael Eisner wasn't terrible. He new how to present himself, just like a car salesman does. Disney is still basically Disney today, albeit, perhaps picked up some bad habits from him. In contrast, Chrysler only staved off bankruptcy for a while, at public expense then was sold. HP ... if you've ever had the opportunity to use their splendidly designed test gear back in the day, you'd know why I think of them as a shadow of what they were. Do you know they developed and marketed a handheld scientific calculator a year or so before anyone else? HP-35. I knew a guy that had one while the rest of us still had slide rules. The professors didn't like it, saw it as giving an unfair advantage. Their HP-41 was equally incredible. Now, well, they're still in business, their gear is competitive. It's not particularly noteworthy nor innovative. Meh, I've had a good HP printer and workstation. Still not a fan of Carly's work.

 

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1 hour ago, mlooney said:

I remember watching "The Wonderful World of Disney", which was after Walt's death, but before he was replaced by any one else.  After about 73 or there about I stopped watching TV, so I never got exposed to a Disney show with a host.

I am curious, why did you stop?

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1 hour ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Born in 1954.

[...]

How many years apart are we?

A few decades actually (which fits with what I thought I remembered from other discussions); I was born in 1980.

Now I'm a little confused by your saying you were "pre-teen or teen" when seeing Eisner hosting; as far as I can tell from Wikipedia his first hosting job was on "The Disney Sunday Movie" in 1986. Are the articles I consulted missing something, were you perhaps older when you saw him hosting than you remembered, or is there time travel involved?

1 hour ago, Darth Fluffy said:

My earliest TV recollection is seeing Dennis the Menace when it first came on, because my parents hyped it. Also recall Leave it to Beaver, which featured no actual dam building rodents, and I Love Lucy, which may have been in reruns already. Much three stooges, much Popeye cartoons. I caught Ruff & Ready, but it must have been a NYC station, because when my parents moved from NJ, metro NYC to Philly suburbs, I never saw it again. I recall the debut of Huckleberry Hound, Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Top Cat, The Alvin Show, Lost in Space (started out good, but quickly got silly), The Addams Family, Probably more if I thought about it. I was a bit late with Star Trek, picking it up about the third episode.

My earliest TV recollection is watching Mister Rogers' Neighborhood; I also watched Sesame Street at the time. At various points in my childhood, my favorite shows included Voltron (the first English version) , Transformers (the original cartoon), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (also the original cartoon); I also watched a lot of other 80s cartoons. My introduction to Star Trek was The Next Generation; it's only thanks to reruns that I've seen the original series at all.

Incidentally, while I wouldn't count it among my all-time favorites, I used to love watching reruns of Rocky & Bullwinkle. (Another show from before my time I've always enjoyed was the original Scooby-Doo.)

Edited by ChronosCat
Clarification and another thought.

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6 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

A few decades actually (which fits with what I thought I remembered from other discussions); I was born in 1980.

Now I'm a little confused by your saying you were "pre-teen or teen" when seeing Eisner hosting; as far as I can tell from Wikipedia his first hosting job was on "The Disney Sunday Movie" in 1986. Are the articles I consulted missing something, were you perhaps older when you saw him hosting than you remembered, or is there time travel involved?

Wow, that's scary. A quick check confirms the timeline you state. I was by no means a teen, out of college and at my third duty station. Definitely misremembering the circumstances. I know I've seen it, but the context, the surroundings are wrong. Seriously, getting old is not for the faint of heart.

You young whipper snappers get off my lawn!

7 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

My earliest TV recollection is watching Mister Rogers' Neighborhood; I also watched Sesame Street at the time. At various points in my childhood, my favorite shows included Voltron (the first English version) , Transformers (the original cartoon), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (also the original cartoon); I also watched a lot of other 80s cartoons. My introduction to Star Trek was The Next Generation; it's only thanks to reruns that I've seen the original series at all.

Incidentally, while I wouldn't count it among my all-time favorites, I used to love watching reruns of Rocky & Bullwinkle. (Another show from before my time I've always enjoyed was the original Scooby-Doo.)

I was past the demographic for both Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and Sesame Street when they debuted, was somehow aware of what they were, so I must have seen some. I remember the SNL spoof of Mr Rogers Neighborhood. Fred Rogers had a knack for talking to little kids. He could talk at their level and not be condescending. Sesame Street has changed focus over the years. Initially it was on basic skills, counting and the alphabet, and rudiments of beginning reading. It was a very clever approach. Weirdly, just like Looney Toons, some of the content was WAY over the kids' heads. I recall and Allister Cookie skit, 'Monsterpiece Theater' - with famous movie titles framing a simple short lesson. Cookie Monster even had the pipe to gesture with. In Looney Toons that content made sense, it played in theater cartoons. In Sesame Street, the demographic watching was overwhelmingly kids. Perhaps it was thrown in for parents watching with there kids, which is probably where I've seen it.

I've never gotten into Transformers, nor Voltron. Saturday morning animation comes in waves of fashion. When I was in the elementary ages, they still showed a lot of stale ancient cartoons, like Herman and Catnip. Casper, the Friendly Ghost. I remember a wave of superhero shows, they were for the most part not great on down to pathetic. Decades later, they have been gutted for spoof content, like Space Ghost, Coast to Coast and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.

I think Voltron and Transformers came about as awareness grew of using the cartoons to market toy lines. While there were toys of earlier shows, these new shows were designed hand in hand with the toy line to market it. G.I. Joe was changed from a 12" scale doll to a line of action figures that corresponded with a cartoon show.

The worst wave, the one I dislike the most, is the overly saccharine '<x franchise> Babies' from a while back. Sorry, whoever likes them, not a fan. I don't think I'm alone in this; Animaniacs is great, well liked, Tiny Toons does not seem to have much of a following.

Star Trek TOS was ground breaking when it originally aired. After a decade of science fiction shows dominated by Irwin Allen, which all quickly devolved into silly and/or cheesy, it took itself (at least somewhat) seriously. It has not aged well, and it is difficult to find a fan of Bill Shatner's acting. TNG had trouble finding their way at first, they spent the first season trying to imitate TOS, even to the story level, but once they broke out and became their own show, they had some of the best episodes in the Trek setting. Playing with Data's personhood was brilliant.

There is a somewhat obscure Star Trek animated series that ran on Saturday mornings after TOS ended. Roddenberry helmed it, it used the TOS actors as the voice actors, and remained a serious Star Trek show. I've only seem a few episodes, but they were pretty good. It's been largely forgotten since TOS aired. The weirdest thing about it was airing it on Saturday mornings.

Rocky and Bullwinkle was brilliant, but used more topical humor; also the show had story lines that spanned episodes, and if care was not taken to play them in order, the episodes would loose much value (like what happened to Firefly). I can see a sub-par station picking the show up for syndication and being clueless about how to air it.

I had to look up 'How old is Scooby Doo'. Rolled out in 1969. In spite of my logo, I would not call myself a fan; more like I know some of the content, and it is ... interesting. Broadly spoofable. A conflux of tropes. In fact, more than most shows, which tropes seem more organic to the setting, Scooby Doo seems built on tropes and plays with tropes. It is a genuinely odd show. It screams for a backstory that is never spelled out. (If I recall correctly, the eventual movies take various inconsistent stabs at that.)

Scooby Doo was not Hanna Barbara's first talking dog. Aside from the obvious anthropomorphics, which don't count, Astro talked in a manner similar to Scooby, and Muttley snickered knowingly, so maybe a fraction for him.

A Scooby Doo D&D session might be interesting. Basically, they have no skills for the D&D settings, they run into real monsters, and everyone dies.

Did you watch Bill Nye, the Science Guy?

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49 minutes ago, mlooney said:

then moved the country where there was no TV service.

My uncle lived in a rural area and he tied a light wire to his TV antenna and a helium balloon to improve reception.  When I first saw Jeff Foxworthy, I thought that balloon stunt was the most redneck thing possible.

I was in a small town in the middle of nowhere rural Michigan.  Ours was one of the early communities to adopt cable back when it was still accurately known as Community Areal Television (CATV).  So I grew up watching programming from Detroit, Toledo, Lansing, & Kalamazoo even though it was a one to three hour drive to any of those places.

What I recall from early childhood was the FCC Mandated original programming that local  stations were required to produce.  After local news and community events shows, the most common was children's programming.  I still recall fondly "Hot Fudge", "Patches & Pockets", "Channel 3 Clubhouse", and the locally produced versions of "Bozo" & "Romper Room".  One thing I didn't realize until recently was that the group that owned the national rights to "Romper Room" and regulated the local versions also owned the rights to "Bowling for Dollars".  Such great cultural icons held by the same corporate overlords.

Also, watching so many Detroit channels made me think that "O Canada" along with "The Star Spangled Banner" was part of the TV sign on / sign off ritual everywhere. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0ybkWAsAbQ

 

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2 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I've never lived anywhere that didn't have some coverage that I can recall.

Ozarks part of Oklahoma.  It was 10 miles to the closest paved road.  Plus the house was in a fairly deep valley.   Can't really say I missed it all that much.

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28 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

That part I get.

Due to not having TV during middle school and most of my high school years I never picked up the habit of watching it.  There are very few shows I watch on streaming.  I've been with out TV for about 10 years For part of that there was a TV in the house, but mother watched it, all I got was the sound track.  She had some weird tastes in shows.

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12 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I think Voltron and Transformers came about as awareness grew of using the cartoons to market toy lines. While there were toys of earlier shows, these new shows were designed hand in hand with the toy line to market it. G.I. Joe was changed from a 12" scale doll to a line of action figures that corresponded with a cartoon show.

Voltron started life as two anime series, entirely unrelated other than being made by the same company and featuring a lot of similar themes, "Beast King Golion" and "Armored Fleet Dairugger XV". Some American TV producers decided it would be a good idea to combine the two shows with entirely new scripts (they didn't bother hiring a translator) and the worst of the violence censored. I don't know how much selling toys factored into this idea, but there certainly were a number of toys released.

Transformers was indeed made to sell toys from the start; each episode was essentially a twenty-minute advertisement. Despite this, they managed to tell a lot of fun stories, and even occasionally managed something with a bit of depth.

The original TMNT cartoon was also designed to sell toys, despite TMNT having started life as a (teen-to-adult oriented) comic book. However, they had so many more episodes than toys, that most episodes wound up not advertising anything in particular besides the main characters. In retrospect much of the series is pretty poorly written and animated, but I'm still fond of it.

12 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Star Trek TOS was ground breaking when it originally aired. After a decade of science fiction shows dominated by Irwin Allen, which all quickly devolved into silly and/or cheesy, it took itself (at least somewhat) seriously. It has not aged well, and it is difficult to find a fan of Bill Shatner's acting. TNG had trouble finding their way at first, they spent the first season trying to imitate TOS, even to the story level, but once they broke out and became their own show, they had some of the best episodes in the Trek setting. Playing with Data's personhood was brilliant.

There is a somewhat obscure Star Trek animated series that ran on Saturday mornings after TOS ended. Roddenberry helmed it, it used the TOS actors as the voice actors, and remained a serious Star Trek show. I've only seem a few episodes, but they were pretty good. It's been largely forgotten since TOS aired. The weirdest thing about it was airing it on Saturday mornings.

I've always preferred the characters in TNG, but I like TOS too - Shatner's acting and all. (When I first encountered TOS, the low production values and dated special effects bothered me a bit, but these days I consider them part of the series' charm, much like I enjoy the same qualities with Godzilla films and Doctor Who episodes from the 60s.)

Oddly enough, I've actually seen a couple of episodes of the Animated Series; a Boston station was playing reruns of them when I visited my grandparents in Massachusetts one summer in the early 90s. I liked what I saw, and it is on the long list of TV shows I'd like to check out more of one day.

12 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Rocky and Bullwinkle was brilliant, but used more topical humor; also the show had story lines that spanned episodes, and if care was not taken to play them in order, the episodes would loose much value (like what happened to Firefly). I can see a sub-par station picking the show up for syndication and being clueless about how to air it.

I know they usually did multi-part storylines (I think something like four parts per story); luckily the station I watched it on played "episodes" that contained all the parts of a story (along with segments of other things, such as Peabody and Sherman). There wasn't any particular continuity between different storylines, was there?

12 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Did you watch Bill Nye, the Science Guy?

I was getting a little beyond the target audience age wise, but yes I did, and I loved it (despite knowing the vast majority of the things he was teaching).

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A good portion of the early TNG episodes were produced durring a writers strike, so they reworked preliminary scripts from an unproduced star trek sequel series that centered on the characters who became Decker & Illya in the motion picture.  

Rocky & Bullwinkle?

The first season had just two stories.  Box Top Robbery which had twelve segments spread over six episodes.  And Jet Fuel Formula with 40 segments over 20 episodes.

6, 8, 10 & 12 segment stories were most common with some stories having as few as 4 segments.

 

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53 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Rocky & Bullwinkle?

The first season had just two stories.  Box Top Robbery which had twelve segments spread over six episodes.  And Jet Fuel Formula with 40 segments over 20 episodes.

6, 8, 10 & 12 segment stories were most common with some stories having as few as 4 segments.

 

Huh. So I guess the showing I saw couldn't have always had the entire story in a day. Still, I definitely remember getting the entire story at least some of the time, and if they played episodes out of order I never noticed.

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1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

The original TMNT cartoon was also designed to sell toys, despite TMNT having started life as a (teen-to-adult oriented) comic book. However, they had so many more episodes than toys, that most episodes wound up not advertising anything in particular besides the main characters. In retrospect much of the series is pretty poorly written and animated, but I'm still fond of it.

I am surprised you knew it was a comic first. I've never seen the comic for sale. TMNT timeline:

Comic: Published 1984 to 2014, appears to have been licensed a few times to others.

RPG: 'Active' 1985 to just into 2000 -published by Palladium books. I've seen this in my gaming store, back in the day (1980s).

I didn't know anyone that purchased it. There was a line of lead figures for it, the store carried them, and I've seen them on ebay occasionally.

Cartoon: Began in 1987, so, not long after, and then it really took off. Lots of action figures and play sets. My kids were never really into this.

Movies: Began in 1990.

Franchise: They've had many iterations of the cartoon, films, and toys. Still has a fairly strong following.

I've never gotten into them myself, (probably why my kids did not gravitate to it) but I like the basic early concept. I like Splinter. The April comic art in the original comic is more ethnic than April in the cartoon. I did not realize Casey Jones was an ally, I figured he was an antagonist.

 

1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

I've always preferred the characters in TNG, but I like TOS too - Shatner's acting and all. (When I first encountered TOS, the low production values and dated special effects bothered me a bit, but these days I consider them part of the series' charm, much like I enjoy the same qualities with Godzilla films and Doctor Who episodes from the 60s.)

The overall acting of pretty much everyone is more organic in TNG, it flows better, you can actually believe they live on the ship. There are people in the corridors. There are rec areas; 10 forward and the holodeck(s? - there should be several, or is it 'officers only'?).

The cheesiness is still above anything else from that era, for the most part.

Shatner was odd; I've heard stories about him being very controlling and needing to be in the spotlight in each episode - ST - The Shatner Show. I'm not understanding why he got away with it, it seems that Gene Roddenberry was firmly in control. It would have been a better show if the other characters got more focus from time to time, that was one of the strengths of TNG. Consider, there was a lot made of Data and his background. There was much interest in Spock, but episodes that gave clues about his background were not common, and were highly rated. (Not to mention he is basically a better character than Kirk - he is more embedded in the franchise.)

Shatner's follow on series, T.J. Hooker, was basically Kirk as a cop. He's had a long career, though, and it's not all bad. He's in a classic Twilight Zone episode, the guy who sees a thing on the wing of the plane. And he's still going fairly strong. Not my favorite human being, but he has his moments. (He is oddly conspicuously absent from other cast members receiving honors over the years, though they generally support each other.) I would say, 'Talented, but full of himself, and he trips over his own ego.' The 'feud' with George Takei apparently boils down to Shatner seeking hype and notoriety.

Leonard Nimoy was more awesome than is obvious. He was in the US Army, was in charge of entertainers, Special Services, and encouraged at least some  of his troops to pursue a career in entertainment, wrote contact letters on their behalf, and supported them. On the Trek set, he lobbied for better pay for people such as Nichelle Nichols. He was well liked and well remembered. Perhaps one of Shatner's few friends on the set. He was also in a Twilight Zone episode, one where he's a lieutenant in the Pacific invading a Japanese held island in WWII, and he briefly switches places with the leader in the cave they are assaulting.

 

33 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

A good portion of the early TNG episodes were produced durring a writers strike, so they reworked preliminary scripts from an unproduced star trek sequel series that centered on the characters who became Decker & Illya in the motion picture. 

I had forgotten the strike, I recall you are right. There are several preliminary scripts for unproduced Star Trek sequels. I think there was a pilot for one centering on Sulu's later career. The lady that played Janice Rand was involved in a reboot of her character. I think there may have been some Web based efforts, seem to recall seeing a bit of that.

 

2 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Oddly enough, I've actually seen a couple of episodes of the Animated Series; a Boston station was playing reruns of them when I visited my grandparents in Massachusetts one summer in the early 90s. I liked what I saw, and it is on the long list of TV shows I'd like to check out more of one day.

The bits I've seen were well done. The writing was good, and one about a Sargasso Sea -like section of space with many derelict craft I had read in a Star Trek short story collection before I saw the show. (They team up with the Klingons to both escape.)

 

1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Rocky & Bullwinkle?

The first season had just two stories.  Box Top Robbery which had twelve segments spread over six episodes.  And Jet Fuel Formula with 40 segments over 20 episodes.

6, 8, 10 & 12 segment stories were most common with some stories having as few as 4 segments.

2 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

now they usually did multi-part storylines (I think something like four parts per story); luckily the station I watched it on played "episodes" that contained all the parts of a story (along with segments of other things, such as Peabody and Sherman). There wasn't any particular continuity between different storylines, was there?

Huh. So I guess the showing I saw couldn't have always had the entire story in a day. Still, I definitely remember getting the entire story at least some of the time, and if they played episodes out of order I never noticed.

I don't remember any as short as four; I recall frequent cliff hangers, which meant long arcs. Did not recall the contents of the first season at all, then again I watched a lot of it, I'm sure it all blurred over time. Running gags were the characters breaking the fourth wall and interrupting the Narrator, and the Narrator giving two pun titles for the next episode.

Only the Rocky and Bullwinkle segment ran over time, the other segments, Peabody and Sherman, Fractured Fairy Tales, Aesop and Son, and later Dudley Do-Right were standard short cartoons. There were a few interspersed very short segments of Bullwinkle antics, such as reciting poetry.

There was some continuity between story lines in the sense that a character was introduced, and might appear again, but I think there was enough recap that it wasn't a dependency. Per your last comment, I think if you catch the last episode in one of the story lines, there is enough recap that you've got the gist of the story.

 

2 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

(Bill Nye)

I was getting a little beyond the target audience age wise, but yes I did, and I loved it (despite knowing the vast majority of the things he was teaching).

I hyped it to my kids and watched with them. We stumbled on it, and were quickly hooked, it was so well done. Entertaining, often a bit silly as befits kids fare, but very deep and clever. He did actual experimental demonstrations, and I've seen similar shows in my day, but slower and more of a crawl (although, if you can find Dr. Julius Sumner Miller, he had some of Bill Nye's brilliance). Bill Nye kept it moving, and that is a key to hooking a kids audience. The end songs were fantastic, worth of Weird Al.

 

Back to Trek being generally above the quality of Sci Fi at the time, I recall the build up to the release of 2001, a Space Odyssey. It was a phenomenal film, a very detailed and realistic portrayal of space travel and lunar colonization given the understanding of the time (up until he flies into the monolith, then it gets trippy). Having such great memories of it, I rented it and showed it to my kids. They were bored to tears. And I realized that it wasn't that it was a bad film, it wasn't that it was lame per se, it was that space travel is essentially boring. Nothing for days, weeks, months, or years; centuries if we ever reach out beyond are local area, potentially. 

Related, I've run into occasional folks that think the moon landings were faked. No, they weren't. We didn't get to the moon overnight. We and others have been planning that trip for decades; in fiction since the turn of the 1900s. several nations have worked hard on reaching space before Kennedy's proclamation and then it took the better part of a decade. The long development effort and the tiny baby steps were well documented. That we eventually did it should come as no surprise.

I saw the fairly recent cinematic recap from archival footage; there are tens or hundreds of people on the Florida coast watching the take off. Not buying that it was faked and they somehow managed to keep that many people quiet about it

. Or, as Neil deGrasse Tyson says, "If they didn't go to the moon, why is the Saturn V rocket so damned big?"

 

 

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