Monday, May 6, 2013

Bring Me A ... SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON FEST!

                                                          Pretty Cool Version of Popeye


I'm a HUGE (and I don't even know if that's the right word for it) fan of bad radio, those old bad TV shows they used to show late at night, like CREEPFEST or MONSTERFEST or whatever fest they had on.  Like when USA network was better.  Even with that said, I'm a bigger fan of 80's cartoons.  To get the full effect of the shows that I consider "80's" cartoons start with the 1977ish seasons of cartoons shown on Saturday mornings all the way to say, 1995.  That's almost 20 years, but the truth is, some cartoons started in the 80's didn't finish their run until the 90's and same with some of the 70's cartoons.

Now - I don't "yearn" for the return of those types of cartoons, some of them were really bad. But I am looking to collect them.  Some I have and the rest are next to impossible to find, unless I start hitting up the various "fringe" conventions.  Even then, it's like the cracker jack surprise when you open the box.  We all want the cool decoder ring or compass, but we usually end up with that teeny-tiny sticker/tattoo thingy.  That's what i expect when I see those DVD's sitting there in their well worn, hastily moved and packed boxes that litter the aisles of these conventions.

I wonder if there are any second hand stores out there that have these cartoons.  I'm talking the cartoons like Saturday Supercade with Donkey Kong, Q-Bert, Pac-Man, Turbo Teen, Rubiks Cube, The Incredible Hulk, the rest of the series of Superfriends, Popeye and Friends, Laverne And Shirley and The Happy Days gang.  I think I made my point clear.  I want to be able to get these titles.  I just don't know where to go.

Now - I know that these titles are available.  With everything that I've looked at, the main companies Warner Bros. and Universal have held on to these titles for one reason or another, but they should release them to the public!  If there is a huge demand of 80's music, clothes and TV shows and other things, why don't they jump on the band wagon and make their millions/billions off of us by just releasing these titles.

What about you guys?  What cool thing from your childhood do you miss that you would like to have again (or do again).

This is why I miss the Virgin Store here in Sacramento, I could drive there and check out all the cool titles they had, which included old and new cartoons/anime/cheesy 80's movies.  Now I have to take my chance at Fry's Electronics, a craptastic customer experience if there ever was one.

Here's a stupid question.  I can understand looking through bags of customers when they walk in and out of the store through the same entrance - let's be clear with this, when I mean bags, I mean back packs and things like that, what I don't get is them checking your purchases for "stolen" items, even though they say they're checking the receipt to make sure you got all your items, after you have gone through the line to purchase your items.  That's garbage - it makes no sense to check the bag of items you just bought, they're not even really checking the receipt, they count the items in your bag and the items on the receipt and thats it.  That process needs to end.  It's embarrassing. That's basically telling the customer that they're guilty of stealing something.

Next time you're in a store like that, walk by the fact checker and just say "I already know what I bought, I don't need a second opinion"


Thursday, May 2, 2013

To Whom Are The Heroes Held Accountable?

                                                                  Sexy Alex Ross Art!

Comics, TV, movies, books (both lit and art) and numerous other mediums that depict hero's in all their glory have always shown massive battles, destruction on a global scale and ultimately the hero (or heroes) winning the day.

There's been millions of pages of comics and books,  both written and drawn, thousands of hours of television produced; all dedicated to the "superhero".  Now this is all done for fun and entertainment but the one thing that I have noticed is that there are no repercussions when it comes to the "superheroes" destroying a city.  The heroes get thanked or are given a key to the city or medals or whatever they're given to prove their heroicness.  Let me be more specific.

Going with the DC Animated Universe first -

In Batman:The Animated Series - Batman's rogues gallery, which consists of Penguin, Joker, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, Clay Face, Bane, The Mad Hatter, The Scarecrow and other's have routinely blown up buildings and parks, killed many citizens, released toxic gasses into their river system as well as airborne toxins to pollute and destroy or freeze the entire city to prove a point or cause the populace to go completely insane.

In Superman The Animated Series - Superman battles highly powered super beings and aliens who unleash mass destruction on the city of Metropolis.  Hell even Darkseid comes to earth and destroys parts of Smallville.  There isn't an episode of S:TAS that a flying vehicle doesn't crash or a building doesn't rain destruction down on the populace or an alien attacks and proceeds to kick Superman through multiple buildings or through the surface of a street.

The Justice League - same exact as Batman or Superman - mass destruction on a scale that would cause the United States to think twice about letting these over powered maniacs out in public. It's even depicted in several episodes that the government has started keeping tabs on them because of their power and the amount of destruction they have done to the various cities.

It's all the same in the Marvel Universe as well.
The Hulk - an unchecked maniac with anger management issues that runs uncontrolled throughout the world beating ass on his rivals and even his friends.  This guy can chuck tanks like they are nerf footballs hundreds of miles away, create devastating earthquakes just by clapping his hands and is nigh invulnerable.

Spider-man - well, he's an over powered mutant that can lift several tons over his head, but that's not why he's on here.  He swings through New York City on a high tensile wire, perilously close to the ground, distracting drivers, his enemies continuously destroy the tram systems, topple buildings and in one case caused a massive sand storm through one of the major streets just because they could.

Iron Man - He's a man in flying armor that has no less than destroyed downtown New York, the World's Fair and the Grand Prix... nuff said.

The Avengers - New York City or any city that they travel to?

I could go on, but I wanted to use these examples to bring up the big question of -
"To whom are the heroes held accountable?"

With the amount of physical destruction done by these super heroes (See The Incredibles for a good answer to this) who pays to rebuild the cities and transportation systems that these people willfully destroy.  It has to cost the insurance companies trillions (or more) of dollars just to be able to fix all the damage done by the heroes and their enemies.  Is there even a policy for "intergalactic invader destruction"?

There are a few comics out there that have attempted to answer the question of who is responsible, one of the best being Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.  It's only a few scenes where Superman/Clark Kent is speaking with the President of The United States and with Bruce/Batman, but it's pretty poignant in what was said (or not said) and that all the heroes have been essentially decommissioned unless they are willing to live under strict government rule.

Do the heroes have to pay for the destruction?  Where do they get the money to build their super powered space stations or armor or gadgets?  We all know Batman and Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) and Tony Stark and a couple of other's are billionaires - so we'll take them out of the equation.  But what about Superman, The Flash, The Question, Black Canary, Spiderman, S.H.I.E.L.D, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Scarlet Witch, Hawk-Eye, Black Widow, Bruce Banner, The Fantastic Four, The Punisher or any of the other non-billionaires out that are out there?  Where do they get the money from to fund their projects or pay their insurance premiums?  Most of them have to be uninsurable, just by reputation alone.  Unless they're bonded and have private insurance set up through a fund.  How do the super heroes raise money to build their awesome vehicles or space stations?  Bake sales?  I mean that has to be some super tasty snacks.  I mean if the girl scouts can make a billion dollars on cookie sales, why couldn't the super heroes do the same. Hire children to go door to door doing your charity work by selling cookies and snack foods and then take that same money and turn around and invest it infrastructure, buying land and building your super powered space station.

It could work.

Would anyone be interested in buying some Boring Tuna cookies?