With the mid-season break for Thunderbirds Are Go racing toward us, I thought this would be the perfect time to give my impressions on the show but not only that, but I’ve been lucky enough to receive a DVD test copy of Volume One! Here’s the details!

The Thunderbirds Are Go DVD (Volume 1) will be released in stores from 22nd June 2015 showcasing 13 episodes from the thrilling new series!

Thunderbirds Are Go is an exciting mixture of CGI and live action miniatures. Whenever disaster strikes, International Rescue answers the call!  From their hidden island base in the south Pacific, the five Tracy Brothers pilot remarkable, cutting-edge Thunderbird vehicles from the depths of the oceans to the highest reaches of space – all for one purpose: to help others in need.  

Continue the F.A.B. action and complete your own missions on the Thunderbirds Are Go website! The International Rescue training programme is now open for recruit registration!  Take part in IR training missions, earn badges and rewards and work your way through the ranks! Sign up and find out if you can crack The Hood’s weekly challenge!

Technically, the DVD is quite competent. The UI is thematically consistent with the show and even plays clips from the show while waiting for you to make your decision. The episode selection screen is easy to navigate and the set-up menu lists a bunch of options for languages and subtitles. If there’s one drawback, it’s the lack of special features. Considering the amount of behind the scenes footage that exists, it’s a shame that none of it is included.

Moving onto the show proper, the series has been a fantastic jaunt through various exotic locales, crafted beautifully by the WETA Workshop. The lengths the WETA team has gone to create these living, breathing worlds in which the CGI characters inhabit is astounding. Little movements of the physical set that coincide with character interaction is really interesting to see.

The Thunderbirds have also been given a radical new lease on life, with every iconic vehicle getting a substantial overhaul, if not visibly, then functionally. TB1 operates in much the same way it always did but with some new gimmicks and TB2 (my personal favourite) is just as cool as it was 50 years ago! Though I do lament the lack of iconic Pod machines…

Oh, they’re there. The Elevator Cars and Mole are present but very different. Pod 2 contains a mobile factory in which the two chassis are fitted with modular components to suit whatever mission TB2 is dispatched for. It’s a REALLY neat idea and I do like it but there’s a charm to the dedicated machines of old. Then again, there’s still another 4 Pods unaccounted for so maybe my dream of a 2015 update to the Firefly and Recovery Vehicles may still come true!

Despite the shortened run time (From 50mins to 22mins) there’s plenty of characterisation (and a few lame running gags, unfortunately). Scott tends to be the most boring, as de facto leader in his father’s absence but still has the odd flash of coolness. Virgil has been firmly established as the ladies’ favourite and I can’t argue. He’s got the masculine lumberjack thing going for him and a bucket full of charm and wit. Alan is bratty and probably the least interesting and John has tons more flavour to him than his predecessor. Kayo is a reinvented Tin-Tin and is quite the action girl, being a tomboyish counterpart to Lady Penelope. (Kayo even gets her own Thunderbird, though it hasn’t got any real play in the first half).

Speaking of Lady P, her blossoming romance with Gordon is quite interesting and the characters play off each other quite well.

Overall, I’m really digging the series and the few flaws aren’t enough to turn me off. You can pre-order Volume One of Thunderbirds Are Go from iTunes and Amazon UK and is set for release on the 22nd June with an RRP of £14.99. What do you think of the show so far? Be sure to let me know in the comments and keep a look out in the future for more Thunderbirds Are Go content!

The show was narrated by legendary English comedy actor David Jason and he also voiced the eponymous hero. Danger Mouse was a super spy, moulded much in the same vein as James Bond and Sherlock Holmes. He was closely followed everywhere by his assistant Penfold, whose blundering often both caused and cured many of DM’s problems.

The fun in the show was very British with lots of puns and wordplay long with endless breaking of the 4th wall. This sort of anarchic comedy was always my favourite. It makes proceedings both incredibly clever and dumb simultaneously. Something we pride ourselves on here at DOOM Towers. Wink.

The show mirrored and enhanced this aesthetic with its fast and frantic theme song. As a parody of spy adventures, it manages to capture the pulp feel of those tales along with the ridiculous over-hyping of the main character at the same time. To conclude by blowing up the title? C’mon, you might as well be recruiting me.

Here is a full episode. It’s ten minutes long so how could you say no?

Word-up, this is very much a show of it’s time and is possibly not considered 100% PC in places now.

I’m in this pic, just barely offscreen. Trust me.

That movie is Equestria Girls.

I have to preface this with two very big points. One, for the majority of the 72-minute feature My Little Pony film, all the characters are human (with the exception of one, who is a dog). And two, when fans first got wind of this, there was a SHITSTORM.

This pretty much sums up the reactions.

Think about it: you have a magical world where ponies go on adventures, and then suddenly for no sensical reason, we turn them into teenagers in a high school setting. Who wouldn’t be a little apprehensive? Okay, the reason was to compete with the likes of rival company Mattel’s popular Monster High line of dolls. But still! Why not create a new series based in high school from the onset rather than drag a series with a huge fan base that has nothing to do with high school into it? Well, that’s it, right there. There’s a huge fan base consisting of mostly older viewers, some in high school. So why not go after the guaranteed sell?

Just… just don’t look directly at them.

BUT for review purposes, I won’t be focusing on the business end of it, because it somehow (like the show, which was initially made to sell toys) manages to transcend the marketing ploy. This film features the talents of the team at DHX Media, who creates the regular pony show, as well as the writing of Friendship is Magic head writer Meghan McCarthy. Since the trailer was first released, and this fact was made known, it put a lot of people’s minds at ease, myself included.

Theater Experience

The showing we went to was sold out, and the crowd was amazing. People came from all over, and the audience ranged from little kids to geeky adults with no kids. Even though our group was big, it only made up a fraction of the theater. It was fun to Brony-spot outside before the showing.

Inside there was much laughter, clapping, oooos, ahhhhs, dancing in seats, and a few “What the hell?!”s as the film’s plot unfolded. My favorite audience moment happened toward the end when (*SLIGHT SPOILER*) the villain wields a sledgehammer and for two seconds it looks like she’s about to use it on Spike (*SLIGHT SPOILER OVER*), which caused someone from the back to yell out “JAYSUS!”

I’m not saying it was entirely appropriate for “What the hell?” or “JAYSUS!” to be uttered in an audience comprised of one-third little kids (and I don’t encourage it), but it was funny nonetheless.

Overall, it was probably the most fun I’ve had in a theater for a while. And those kinds of experiences where the audience is totally involved in every step of the movie are exceedingly rare.

The Actual Movie

I know I said I wasn’t going to focus on the business end of it, but I kind of wish Hasbro had just marketed it as The Friendship is Magic Movie (set in an alternate universe) instead of its own separate thing. Because that’s basically what it is; a proper movie based on the show, which is exactly what I wanted. And boy, it didn’t disappoint.

It opens shortly after the close of the third season, wherein Twilight Sparkle, the unicorn main character of the show, has been transformed into an Alicorn Princess (a pony with both wings and horns who possesses incredible magic powers). She is at the Equestrian capitol of Canterlot, fretting over both her new responsibilities and new wings to her Dragon assistant Spike. In the night, her magical crown is stolen, which leads to a chase that ends with the perpetrator going through a mysterious mirror portal.

“I don’t have fingers yet, but TAKE ONE OF THESE!”

Celestia (the Equestrian ruler) tells Twilight that she alone must journey to the world through the mirror and retrieve her crown, or else the Elements of Harmony (Okay. I’m not going explain every single thing from the show or we’ll be here forever. Let’s just say they’re important, alright?) will have no power in their world, leading to all sorts of catastrophe.

“Your friends can’t come with you because Plot Device.”

On the other side, she finds she is a new and unfamiliar being called a human, and the place she appears in front of is Canterlot High School. And so our story begins!

Bring on the humans!

What I Thought

On the whole, the film is low-key, letting the story unfold through character interactions, with the occassional musical numbers, and an action montage. Normally with direct-to-video (which I’m not sure technically applies in this case) feature-length films based on tv shows for kids, there are a bunch of pointless scenes that play out solely to pad time. While sometimes it feels like this might be happening (for example the soccer match between Twilight and Rainbow Dash), it actually serves as a plot point further on. Not to say those scenes aren’t fun.

SPOILERS: Twilight has her ass handed to her.

In fact I cannot think of a single scene that could be removed and not affect something else that happens. The human version of each character is slowly rolled out, so we can spend a little time with each before the whole gang gets together and acts as a whole. It’s pretty tightly written and well paced, lacking the troubles some of the hour-long episodes suffer at not having enough time for the story.

The comedy is solid. They play with Twilight getting used to the human world in fun ways, without overdoing it.

This scene from the first trailer is what actually sold me.

Most of the jokes are character-based, but are written as such that they’d be funny regardless. The same good, solid laughs present in the show can be found here, much to fan delight. Pinkie Pie keeps her trademark impossible cartoony slapstick and physicality. The first thing her human doppleganger does is take one of the balloons sewn into her skirt and blow it up. Perfect.

You just keep on being Pinkie, Pinkie.

The ending was unexpected, and did not disappoint! I will not go into spoilers, but it sorta-kinda fulfilled a hope I had for the movie as a whole.

All in all, it felt like a proper MLP:FiM movie (sort-of sans Pony –they manage to work it in), which is all I really wanted.

Oh, do they work it in.

There are tons of things dropped in for fans, and it did a good job of standing on its own, working as both a movie and as part of the regular series via a side adventure. I would even venture to say that one who is not familiar with the series would also enjoy it. But of course it’s a much richer experience if you are.

Rock on, bafflingly popular background character!

Equestria Girls comes out on DVD and Blu ray on August 6th for those who missed the theater experience.

Albert runs an offbeat film podcast with his friend Austin called The Film Room. They are currently discussing GOJIRA.

I’ll kick off with the Classic Collector Figures since there’s less of them. As the name implies, this line focuses on the classic 80’s designs but with today’s modern engineering and the result is the 8” Lion-O and Tygra. The 8 inch scale is one that’s not often utilised  but it differentiates these figures from a lot of others which is a good thing. The figures come with a multitude of accessories, from extra hands, Tygra’s signature bolo-whip and the Sword of Omens in both its long and short forms. The sculpting and paint are very good but the old designs were very basic, but the paint apps are crisp, clean and iconic, making these perfect for fans of the show or 80’s nostalgia.

This action figures based on the 2011 cartoon come in two sizes (so far) 6 and 4 inches respectively. The 6” figures are more collector focused and the 4” figures come in both basic and deluxe, the latter having some form of action feature. All the basic characters are represented and interact with vehicles and playsets utilising an embedded magnet system called “Thunder Lynx” that activates special features. It kind of reminds me of the old STARCOM toys. Lots of articulation provide a greater range of motion than I‘ve seen in other figures of this scale.

Roleplay items are also available, the highlight being the Deluxe Sword of Omens. With an extendable blade, lights and sounds, this is hot tipped to be this years best-seller. A smaller Sword of Omens and Claw Shield will also be available.

The vehicles that utilise the Thunder Lynx feature are the Lizard Cannon with Slithe, ThunderRacers with either Lion-O or Tygra and the daddy of them all, the mighty ThunderTank! With Snarf. Hehehe I love me some Snarf so getting a ThunderTank and a Snarf is great. Snarf also uses Thunder Lynx to activate sound effects and lights while the ThunderTank itself fits most 4” figures. It’s a great design and I can’t wait to see it released.

Bandai is doing a decent job of catering to fans of both new and old with this brand. Their lines are diverse, seemingly well made and offer a lot of value for money. I’ve seen some of their newer Power Rangers products (Namely the 4” figures) and they’re finally matching the articulation and sculpting that some of their competitors have been doing for years. I hope to see more of thisin the future and will be checking out some of the figures once they get released (Hope the paint holds up to the images we’ve seen).

The prices for the figures, playsets, vehicles and roleplay items will run from between £7.99 to £39.99 but I expect that there’ll be a couple places putting them on offer for the Christmas rush. You can feel the magic and hear the roar this coming December!

To say the first three episodes were brilliant would be an understatement. I’ve already stated that I wasn’t a Thundercats fan as a kid but this new series certainly makes me want more. The story establishes that the current cast are not yet the Thundercats, another group of heroes founded their society and it has become a utopia for the cats while all the other animal species are subjugated and repressed by current ruler King Claudus (Played by original Lion-O voice actor, Larry Kenney). It is through the harshness of this world that we meet Lion-O, heir to the throne and believer in the mystical arts of technology. We soon learn through him that all is not right with the kingdom of Thundera and soon the worst comes to pass as…. Well, I’m not actually going to spoil it for you. Suffice to say that the story had me hooked and wanting more.

The voice cast is stellar, from the returning Larry Kenney, to Will Friedle taking the role of Prince Lion-O as well as Kevin Michael Richardson, Corey Burton and Clancy Brown; this is an all-star voice cast. All the voices feel natural for the characters and not to mention the subtle audio bits they do like purrs and growls are superb.

I’ve already touched upon Claudus and Lion-O so I’ll talk about some of the other key characters. Tygra, unlike the architect of old, is the smarmy adopted brother of Lion-O and is the foil for Lion-O, often teasing or showing him up. Cheetara is introduced fairly early as a competent fighter as she helps Lion-O in a street brawl. The Thunderkittens, WilyKit and WilyCat, are portrayed as adorable, pick-pocketing, street urchins with dreams of finding the mystical city of riches, El Dora. One thing that annoyed about the original series was Snarf and thank the maker they changed him too. In a world where most animals talk, it’s nice that Snarf is being played more as a pet than the bumbling wise-cracking dick he used to be. Panthro is introduced in the pilot but we aren’t actually introduced to the character other than he’s one of Claudus’s most trusted generals.

The animation and sound design are beautiful in equal measure, the incidental music that accompanies the stunning painted visuals of Thundera truly make this world come alive. I’d definitely put this on par with the likes of Avatar: The Last Airbender in terms of stunning landscapes. Some of the old music cues from the old show return, such as the weird noise of the Eye of Thundera and a shortened orchestral version of the Thundercats theme for the intro which starts with the third episode.

As a non-fan, I really enjoy this show and is one of the more successful reinventions of old cartoons. If you’re a fan of the old 80’s cartoons, you’re really spoilt for choice right now between this, Transformers: Prime, G.I. Joe Renegades, and My Little Pony. I highly recommend watching this show (or finding it online somehow). To end, I pretty much have to do this.

Thunder! THUNDER! THUNDERCATS, HOOOOO!

By Colin “Ballsmonkey” Hill”

Part 1: Step right up and come on in, here’s where the fun begins.

Those were the words that introduced a block of cartoons that never failed to enlighten and entertain every kid in the 1990’s, The Disney Afternoon. The Disney Afternoon ran from 1990 to 1997, and featured a myriad of cartoons that delivered all the action, adventure, and comedy we needed growing up. This group of shows re- invented such classic Disney characters as Uncle Scrooge, Goofy, and Chip ‘n Dale, as well as introducing us to a whole cast of new ones like Launchpad McQuack, Max Goof, and Gadget Hackwrench. If you’re like me, this block of shows helped define your childhood. The DA was just as big a part of my developing years as Ninja Turtles, Batman, and Power Rangers. It was both kick ass and family friendly, proof that studio driven cartoons can be good when done right. Today in this article, I’m bringing you a Disney Afternoon.

The Disney Afternoon officially came into being on September 10, 1990, though three of its shows (Adventures of the Gummi Bears, DuckTales, and Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers), had debuted some years prior. The three already popular cartoons were repackaged and grouped with TaleSpin, the first cartoon original to the block, and thus the legend was born. The Animation was done by the Australia-based studio Disney Toon Studios (now Walt Disney Television Animation and relocated to Burbank, California). The first four DA shows featured more conservative and soft traditional Disney animation, though later series would be more energetic and cartoony. Also notable among the shows were their incredible theme songs. Each was very catchy, they fit the tone of the show, and did what every theme song should do, get you pumped for the actual show. From Gummi Bears’ majestic and harmonious score, to the jazzy and noir-feel of Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers’ theme, to the mind-bogglingly quirky and freakishly addictive theme that preceded DuckTales, these songs were well constructed and made sure these shows stuck with you for a long while. Also common among the shows was their robust and incredibly talented voice casts. Such greats as Jim Cummings, Bill Farmer, Tress MacNeille, Christine Cavanaugh, Russi Taylor, Rob Paulsen, Jeff Bennett, Corey Burton, and late, greats like Paul Winchell and Dana Hill gave life to the amazing and loveable characters.

In 1991, Darkwing Duck made its debut, pushing Gummi Bears off the line-up. This would become a common practice in this line-up, whenever a new show was added, the oldest show would be bumped off and the rest would be moved up one, a system that looking back was very fair and logical. Goof Troop’s addition in ’92 would move DuckTales off, and 93’s Bonkers would go on to replace Rescue Rangers. Other shows to make their way onto the line-up in one form or another included Gargoyles, Aladdin the Series, Quack Pack, Timon and Pumbaa, The Schnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show, Mighty Ducks, and 101 Dalmatians the Series. The Disney Afternoon would continue to air in syndication until the Fall of 1997 when it was removed from the air and its shows played sporadically on Toon Disney. In its run, the block’s individual shows spawned toys, video games, and soundtracks, two feature films, and even a whole attraction and rides at Disneyland.

With that bit of history aside, let’s now look at the individual shows themselves and what made them so damn good.

The Adventures of the Gummi Bears (1985): The first of the DA shows before DA even existed. Gummi Bears, indeed inspired by the candy of the same name, told the story of a group of mystical and anthropomorphic bears called Gummies who drank a special elixir known as Gummiberry Juice that gave them the ability to bounce like rubber, as well as giving super strength to any human that drank it. Thought extinct, a group of seven Gummi Bears (Zummi, Gruffi, Grammi, Sunni, Cubby, Tummy and later Gusto) live in secret and protect the medieval kingdom of Dunwyn from the evil Duke Igthorn and his army of Ogres. Gummi Bears was a breath of fresh air in the dark decade of animation known as the 80’s. It featured an engaging and surprisingly deep story with believable characters. The Gummi’s themselves talked and acted like real people, and had their own unique quirks. Gusto Gummi was my favorite. He was wacky, quick witted, and hilarious, thanks in part to the vocal stylings of Rob Paulsen. The show was rich in fantasy and created a world of wizardry and gadgetry, a world where anything was possible, and served as the inspiration for another show on this block that we’ll get to later. It even had a proper series finale, which sent the series out on a hopeful note. Why this show never spawned a movie I’ll never know.

DuckTales (1987): Life is like a hurricane, here in Duckburg. All it takes is those words to get that horribly addictive theme song stuck in your head. DuckTales was based off the Uncle Scrooge comics by Carl Barks. It told the adventures of Scrooge McDuck, the richest Duck in the world, as he hunted for treasures and such with his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and his pilot Launchpad McQuack. DuckTales combined the spirit of Indiana Jones with the whimsy of Disney. Scrooge was a great lead character, crusty and greedy, but honorable and fair. Huey, Dewy, and Louie served as very resourceful sidekicks. But the clear breakout star of the show was Launchpad. A jack-of-all-trades with a million dollar heart and nickel head, with the ability to crash any plane he flies, a skill which he was proud of. DuckTales took us all around the world from African jungles, to the deserts of Egypt, to European country sides. The show was unintentionally teaching us geography while thrilling us with adventures. The show featured a great cast of supporting characters like the inventor, Gyro Gearloose, the superhero Gizmoduck, the bumbling burglars the Beagle Boys, and the nefarious Magica DeSpell and was a staple of kids programming, even spawning the excellent movie Treasure of the Lost Lamp. If the show had one failing, it was that during the final season Launchpad was removed (then starring on Darkwing Duck), and the focus was moved to Scrooge’s accountant Fenton Crackshell and his heroic alter- ego Gizmoduck. The show really lost what made it so good and sadly ended on a low note. Thankfully, the adventures of Scrooge and company continue in the Uncle Scrooge comics which have been rebranded to incorporate the whole DuckTales universe. Everything comes full circle.

Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers (1989): Disney’s chipmunk duo had until then been pretty bland and one-note. Who knew that the key to revamping Chip ‘n Dale was to stick them in a fedora and Hawaiian shirt respectively? CDRR grouped the chipmunk duo with three new characters; Gadget, the bubbly and absent-minded inventor of the group, Monterey Jack, the boastful and seasoned adventurer with a cheese addiction (who was voiced by Optimus Prime himself, Peter Cullen), and Zipper, Monty’s loyal fly sidekick. Together they served as detectives who helped any animal in need, and on occasion came up against Fat Cat, a kitty crime boss, and Professor Nimul, a mad scientist as well as their only human enemy. Rescue Rangers was a fun show all around. The characters all had a great dynamic and played off each other perfectly. Chip ‘n Dale made a great duo, with the former as the serious and straightforward leader and the latter being the playful goofball and the resident comic relief. Also great was the duo competing for the attention of Gadget who was always comically unaware of their affections. The show was great at combining the feel of a 40’s noir detective movie with a 70’s TV cop drama, granted the stories were for kids, but they never felt dumbed down. Another quirk was due to the Rescue Rangers being chipmunks/mice, they used common household items like thimbles, detergent bottles, and rubber bands to make things like planes, televisions, and cars. It was creative and always fun to see, and it was that little quirk that inspired the Gadget Go-Coaster at Disneyland, which, as of time of me writing this, is still there today. CDRR was recently revived in comic book form, its first issue debuting this week. It remains to be seen how well the series will stay true to the source, but I have high hopes.

TaleSpin (1990): TaleSpin was originally conceived as a starring vehicle for DuckTales’ star Launchpad McQuack, but was quickly retooled to feature the characters of the Disney movie The Jungle Book set in the 1930’s with an aeronautical theme. The end result as a show filled with adventure and heart. The show centered on the adventures of Baloo, an ace pilot who works for the air cargo service “Higher for Higher”. Each episode would feature Baloo and his sidekick Kit getting into various adventures, discovering new worlds, and eluding the sky pirates led by the evil Don Karnage, all while trying to deliver their cargo. The show was like DuckTales, with the emphasis on travel and adventure, though the tone of this show was very different, more reminiscent of a 30’s and 40’s adventure serials that came before the movies. It did a good job of utilizing the Jungle Book characters in new roles. King Louie was now just Louie, the owner of a tiki bar/pit stop for pilots and Baloo’s best friend. Shere Khan went from being a ruthless killer to a ruthless, yet somewhat honorable, businessman. Mowgli was replaced by Kit as Baloo’s young companion and surrogate son. Baloo himself remained largely unchanged, still laid back and fun loving. The show also had a strong family aspect with the main characters (Baloo, Kit, Rebecca, and Molly) having a strong bond that gave the show a certain charm the previous shows didn’t have. Not the best show of the line-up, but still genuinely fun and exciting.

Since this one is running long, I’ll continue my look back next time with Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, Bonkers, Gargoyles, and the rest. Until next time kids…

By Colin “Ballsmonkey” Hill”

In 1996 I went to see a movie called “Space Jam”. Trailers for it made the movie look like a fun, nutty, adventure that teams Michael Jordan, the greatest Basketball player of the time, with the Looney Tunes, the greatest cartoon characters ever created. I must have seen that movie three or four times, I loved every minute of it. Why? Because I was young and dumb. Space Jam was a complete bastardization of everything Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleing, and Robert McKimson worked so hard to create. It took the characters that made them famous and turned them into a 90-minute long Nike commercial, hiring writers who have obviously never watched a cartoon in their life and had them rip the very soul out of Bugs Bunny and the crew and present us with pale imitations of their former selves.

Space Jam is a prime example the studio executives have no business handling cartoon characters. Sadly it wouldn’t be the last example…enter Yogi Bear.

This cinematic bile is the latest in a string of live action/CGI hybrids based off famous cartoon characters. Why not just do them in regular animation like they should be? Because audiences don’t wanna see that crap! Why look at appealing, well constructed, and unique cartoon characters when we can watch horrifying, mutant, abominations against God for two hours. Seriously, I don’t know what these dingbats are thinking but here’s a newsflash, not everything translates well into live action. Alvin and the Chipmunks, Garfield, Scooby Doo, not a single one of them bear even a resemblance to their animated counter parts, instead they look like the end result of a doomed lab experiment to create a new scent of Axe deodorant.

Hollywood has tried for years to pull off cartoon characters in the real world, and it’s always failed. They try to make the characters and tweak them with real world proportions and sensibilities, but they always come out looking like a hideous, shambling mockery of they once were. One look at them and you don’t wanna hug them, you wanna kill them fire (see Alvin and the Chipmunks, Garfield, Dino in the Flinstones movie, and Transformers for prime examples). With 2000’s Rocky and Bullwinkle they tried to keep the classic cartoon look, but in the end it just looked awkward in the real world background. Look, the reason these characters work in animation…is because it’s animation! You’re creating this world for these characters to exist in, and you believe it, because there’s nothing off putting about it. Trying to take those characters and adapt them to the real world will always result in failure because they weren’t meant for this world. Even human characters tend to look awkward and bland, like the Flinstones, they take the creativity out of them and just make them look like everyone else. It’s just not fun. With the Yogi Bear movie it looks like they didn’t know whether to go fully real or cartoony and the end result looks like an acid trip by Joe Barbera.

Speaking of which, if Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were alive today, what would they say about this? They’d say they love it and fully support this because around the 1970’s thy really stopped caring. That presents another problem, there’s no one around anymore in a position to step up and say no. These beloved characters are sadly forever at the mercy of soulless monkeys-in-suits who have made it their mission to destroy imagination and originality and profit off of the remains. While he couldn’t stop them, I at least applaud Chuck Jones for not supporting that travesty that was Space Jam. Now who’s left?

I really don’t know why people pay to see these movies, (and by the way, I put most of the blame on the audience, because it’s your fault Hollywood is making these, you’re demanding them, you’re paying for the tickets, you’re not telling them to stop, you’re just as much to blame). They can’t think their getting the same thing they would watching the cartoons, because they’re not. What they’re getting is a writer’s twisted idea of what these characters are like, and worse, these movies go on for over an hour. How the hell do you take a six minute cartoon, stretch it out into an hour, and expect to get a good result? By the look of the trailer I can’t make out a distinguishable story, it just looks like a bunch of gags strung together, which isn’t really a bad thing, the Yogi Bear cartoons were just a series of gags, but the clear difference, the cartoon wasn’t over an hour long! And a certain point, that stuff will get old, and without an interesting story to hold the viewers interest, they’ll give up on it midway. But that’s beside the point.

Look, I like that Warner Bros is utilizing it’s large back-lot of cartoon characters and getting them back into the mainstream, but this is the worst possible way to do it. Kids back in 1996 weren’t seeing the Looney Tunes when they watched Space Jam, they were watching this unfunny, obnoxious, fake cartoon characters that were trying to pass themselves off as cartoon characters. Kids that went to see Alvin and the Chipmunks weren’t seeing the Alvin, Simon, and Theodore we grew up loving, no, they were seeing three little autotuned mutants. Alvin didn’t even wear his trademark red hat for christsakes. These characters are being put in the hands of writers and producers who don’t know dick about what it takes to make a cartoon work. Sad part is there are plenty of people today that do, but aren’t being given a shot. If Warner Bros wants to bring back the Hanna Barbera characters, there are better ways. Guys like CraigMcCracken and Gendy Tartakovsky are perfectly capable of making something truly worth seeing. They’ve successfully taken Hanna Barbera’s original system and molded it into their own, and have made truly amazing pieces of animation with it. Give them Yogi Bear, give them the money, give them the go-ahead, and they could produce a series of new, funny, beautiful looking Yogi Bear cartoons that kids can watch.

Make no mistake about this series, though, when you start reading it. No character is safe and you’re going to need quite a lot of comforting after some of the more gruesome points. You have been warned.

Yogi Bear won’t be the last to be tarnished by these monsters. Tom and Jerry are next up on the chopping block, and George Lopez and Mike Meyers are all ready to leave their wretched unfunny marks upon Speedy Gonzales and Pepe Le Pew respectively. Not even the greatest cartoon star of all time, Bugs Bunny, is safe. People, there’s a simple way to stop all this, just don’t go. Don’t take you kids to see it, don’t go out of curiosity, and don’t even go for the sole purpose of mocking it. If you stop watching it, they’ll stop making it. But alas that’ll never happen. Kids are stupid; they’ll eat this stuff up, and then realize later what a mistake they made. At this point I’d rather the characters just sit in the WB vaults and collect dust rather than be exploited like this, at least in the vaults they’d keep their dignity.