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AWESOME-tober-fest 2016: The Mummy: The Animated Series (2001)

Posted in cartoons, holiday, monsters, movies, mummy, nostalgia, pop culture, TV shows with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2016, cartoon, Halloween, holiday, monsters, nostalgia, The Mummy on October 18, 2016 by Paxton

This year, despite my theme being mummies, I decided not to watch or review the most recent Universal The Mummy movies starring Brendan Fraser as Rick O’Connell. I liked those movies okay, but I had other lesser known movies I wanted to watch and talk about first. However, as a compromise, I decided to mention the animated series that is based on those movies.

In 2001, the WB aired The Mummy: The Animated Series. It was loosely based on the first two Stephen Sommers The Mummy movies.

the mummy animated

The main characters are, of course, Evie and Rick O’Connell, their son Alex, Evie’s brother Johnathan and the evil mummy Imhotep. Rick O’Connell, surprisingly, is not voiced by Brendan Fraser (what, was he busy?). He’s voiced by none other than Bo Duke himself, John Schneider. There’s another character in here called The Minotaur that is voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson who voiced The Joker in the 2004 animated The Batman series as well as a slew of other roles in super hero cartoons like Avengers Assemble, Hulk and the Agents of SMASH, Ultimate Spider-Man, Young Justice, etc.

The plot somewhat retcons the movies a little. Back in ancient Egypt, Imhotep is in possession of the Scrolls of Thebes and is searching for the Manacle of Osiris. Just as he’s about to steal it, he’s caught and sentenced to be mummified alive (again, why ALIVE?!). Flash forward to present day, Imhotep is revived by Colin Weasler and he begins the hunt for the Manacle anew. Like in The Mummy Returns, Alex gets the Manacle on his own arm which causes Imhotep to hunt him to obtain it. Rick and Evie battle Imhotep to keep the Manacle away from him with the help of the Medjai, sacred protectors of ancient Egypt.

mummy-the-animated-series-wallpaper

There’s a lot of Medjai back story in the cartoon as well as plenty of searches for things with “of” in the title (Manacle of Osiris, Scythe of Anubis, Lake of Eternity, etc, etc). It’s a not bad, if not great, animated cartoon adventure series. About as good as those last two Fraser Mummy movies.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

AWESOME-tober-fest 2016: Mummies Alive! (1997)

Posted in cartoons, holiday, monsters, mummy, nostalgia, pop culture, TV shows with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2016, cartoon, Halloween, holiday, The Mummy, TV shows on October 12, 2016 by Paxton

In 1997 DIC Entertainment released the animated series Mummies Alive!

Mummies Alive title card

The premise is very mummy-y. Evil sorcerer Scarab kills the Pharaoh’s son but is entombed alive for his crime (why do they never KILL these guys? It’s always entombed ALIVE). He revives in modern day (1997) and searches for the reincarnation of the prince he killed. However, the prince’s protectors are also revived to protect him from harm. It’s a constant battle to keep Scarab from getting his hands on the reincarnated prince.

The prince’s guardians are all mummies each with the power of an Egyptian god. Ja-Kal uses the spirit of falcon, Rath uses the spirit of snake, Armon uses the spirit of ram, and Nefer-Tina uses the spirit of cat. They are able to call upon these powers for magical armor and abilities.

And in typical “cartoon magical transformations” form they call on the powers when they are in immediate danger but then it takes 30 seconds or more for all four mummies to fully transform and by then, in reality, they’d all be dead.

mummies-alive-team-transformed-2

To trigger their powers, the mummies call out the phrase “With the Strength of Ra!” Using these magical abilities depletes their strength, so once their strength is exhausted, they must rest in their sarcophagi to regain their abilities.

Along with Scarab, the mummies had to contend with a litany of Egyptian gods and monsters like Anubis, Set and Sekhmet. But the best episode has to be the one where the mummies actually take a tour of Alcatraz (not even kidding). Here’s the cartoon version of Alcatraz Island.

alcatraz

The show only ran one season but managed to pump out 42 episodes.

You can check out the very first episode, Ra! Ra! Ra! below:

Here’s the episode called The Bird-Mummy of Alcatraz where the mummies take the tour of the infamous prison:

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2015: The Invisible Mouse (1947)

Posted in books, cartoons, Halloween, holiday, pop culture, TV shows with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2015, cartoons, Halloween, holiday, Invisible Man, TV shows on October 19, 2015 by Paxton

The Invisible Mouse was an episode of Tom and Jerry directed by Hanna and Barbera and was released in 1947.

Tom and Jerry - Invisible Mouse 001

It was a parody of the Invisible Man concept from both the HG Wells novel and the Universal Studios movie (which was released 14 years prior to the cartoon).

Tom and Jerry - Invisible Mouse 003
As usual the cartoon starts with the rampant chasing and violence between Tom and Jerry. They chase each other up a flight of stairs, jump on the banister and start sliding down. Then Jerry shifts to a second banister to avoid….wait, WHAT?! I don’t think banisters work that way. What the hell is going on there?

Tom and Jerry - Invisible Mouse 005
Jerry jumps on the counter, finds a “chemo set” and jumps in a random bottle to evade Tom. However, it seems that Jerry accidentally jumped into a bottle of “invisible ink”. And it’s turning him invisible.

Tom and Jerry - Invisible Mouse 008
Interesting. Jerry’s invisibility is not hampered by seeing your food through your stomach. Whatever he eats seems to immediately turn invisible.

Tom and Jerry - Invisible Mouse 011
But he still apparently casts a shadow. Wait, what?! What is the light reflecting around to cause that shadow?!

Tom and Jerry - Invisible Mouse 009
Jerry has lots of fun with his new invisibility. He gives Tom the classic “hot foot” and tees off on Tom’s backside with what looks like a 3 Wood.

Tom and Jerry - Invisible Mouse 013
The short ends with Jerry banishing Tom from the house by getting Spike the dog to chase after him and then laying on Tom’s pillow drinking his chocolate milk. Which seems to restore Jerry back to visible?! Okay.

Well, this particular version of invisible has some goofy rules but what can you expect from a Tom and Jerry cartoon? It’s still a fairly enjoyable watch for fans of the show.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

5 Classic cartoons that were ruined by the addition of a child character

Posted in cartoons, pop culture, TV shows with tags cartoons, movies, Nerd Lunch Podcast, pop culture, TV shows on August 25, 2015 by Paxton

This week on Nerd Lunch, episode 193, we are talking about things we think have gotten a bad rap. We discuss things like The Spice Girls, Star Trek Enterprise, the Keanu Reeves Constantine movie and the Robert Patrick character from X-Files. We are joined by William Bruce West and Kirk Howle for a pretty good discussion.

During the fourth chair carryover question, we all discuss lists that we’d like to write. I mentioned that I had written a list about cartoons that I had sitting in my drafts for YEARS (it was originally written in 2012) that I wanted to get posted. This is that list.

I love cartoons, but there was a rash of poor decisions by studios in the 80s wherein they added baby or child characters to their shows. Here are five cartoons that were ruined by that practice.

scrappy
Scooby-Doo (Scrappy) – Scrappy-Doo is the poster child for bad “youth” characters. He’s so universally hated that in the recent (and AWESOME) 2012 Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc series from Cartoon Network Scrappy shows up stuffed in an exhibit at the Mystery Museum featuring Scooby villains from the past. The Mystery gang promises each other that they’d never talk about it again. Bravo. As we’ll see, Scrappy turned out, unfortunately, to be very popular and would create a trend in cartoons to add baby or child characters to popular cartoon shows.

fangpuss
Fangface (Baby Fang) – I LOVED FANGFACE. Anytime you could get a cartoon featuring classic monsters, I was ALL IN (Drak Pack, Gravedale High, Teen Wolf, etc, etc). However, in season 2, based on the apparent “success” of Scrappy-Doo, Fangface gets a baby nephew that is also a werewolf despite not making any sense based on the opening narration that states only one werewolf is born EVERY 400 YEARS.

babyplas2
The Plastic Man and Baby Plas Super Hour (Baby Plas) – The Ruby Spears Plastic Man cartoon is GREAT. I loved it. However, during the second season, Plas is saddled with Baby Plas. Usually these children are nephews, but Baby Plas was actually the result of Plastic Man and Penny marrying. And then he was the cause of me hating the show.

capt caveman and son
Captain Caveman (and Son) – Again I LOVE CAPT CAVEMAN. My son loves Capt Caveman who appeared on an episode of that aforementioned 2012 Scooby Doo Mystery Inc show. Like Plastic Man, Capt Caveman was given a son in the mid 80s when he appeared in segments of the much younger kid focused TV show, The Flintstone Kids. This particular entry may be the worst after Scrappy. I mean, Baby Plas is pretty awful, but Cavey Jr was a disaster.

Godzilla (Godzooky) – This is the only entry in the list where the child character actually started out on the show from the very beginning. Godzooky is so bad that he even ruins the awesome Godzilla cartoon intro as soon as he shows up.

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Nerd Lunch Episode 130: First Favorite TV Theme Songs

Posted in cartoons, Knight Rider, music, podcast, pop culture, TV, TV shows with tags movies, music, Nerd Lunch Podcast, podcasts, pop culture on May 6, 2014 by Paxton

This week the nerds and I are joined by our good friend, and pop culture encyclopedia, William Bruce West. William joins us to discuss a very favorite topic of ours, TV theme songs.

TV_greatest_hits

We are given categories; cartoons, action, sitcom, drama and opening narration and we all pick 2 or 3 of our favorites in each. Several of us wind up singing the songs for you. And yes, we do discuss our least favorites. But don’t worry, we leave plenty in reserve for our future SECOND Favorite TV Theme Songs episode. And this may be our audio clip-iest episode since that board games episode we did with all the commercials.

Download this episode from iTunes, Stitcher or listen to it on Feedburner.

Or listen to it online right here.