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AWESOME-tober-fest 2009: Monster Force cartoon

Posted in cartoons, Frankenstein, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, TV shows with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2009, cartoons, Frankenstein, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, TV shows on October 16, 2009 by Paxton

I finish Frankenstein cartoon week with a little known monster gem from the mid ’90s: Monster Force.

This series was created in 1994 and lasted 13 episodes. The story is set around the year 2020 and features a team of teen warriors using high tech weaponry to battle the Universal Monsters as well as other spiritual beings. Frankenstein’s monster, aka The Monster, fights on the Monster Force team as does Luke Talbot, the Wolf Man (descendant of the original Larry Talbot from the Universal movie). Also on the team is a psychic girl named Shelley Frank who is somehow connected to Frankenstein.

The main villain of the cartoon is Dracula (with a weird goatee-type thing that looks totally beatnik) and his faithfully gross servant Renfield. Other monsters like Hotep (The Mummy) and The Creature (from the Black Lagoon) also pop up within the first 7 episodes. Monster Force was released on DVD this year. I got it off Netflix to watch expecting a cool, monster vanquishing adventure series. The verdict? It’s awful. Imagine a retarded kid doing a book report on Japanese stereo instructions. Now imagine that this book report is a tighter, more interesting script than anything you see in this show.

For instance, the psychic girl, Shelley Frank. Her name. Get it? Shelley, as in Mary SHELLEY. And Frank, as in FRANKenstein? And you know that she’s psychic because she and the team mention it probably three or four times EVERY EPISODE. You know, in case you forgot in the five minutes it takes for them to mention it again. Shelley is also the only one with wings on her battle armor so she can fly. Why? Why did they not think the rest of the team would want f’n WINGS on their battle armor? I would. I’m on the team, I want to f’n fly, dammit. That’s the type of character development you see in this show.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2009: Drak Pack cartoon

Posted in cartoons, Frankenstein, Halloween, holiday, pop culture, TV shows, werewolves with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2009, cartoons, Dracula, Drak Pack, Frankenstein, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, TV shows, werewolves on October 14, 2009 by Paxton

Continuing my look at cartoons featuring Frankenstein’s monster. Today I look at Drak Pack.

This show originally aired on CBS between 1980 and 1982 and it was created by the Australian arm of Hanna-Barbera.

The cartoon had a great premise. As descendants of the original monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster and Wolf Man), the three main teens use their monster abilities, and taking orders from the legendary Dracula, to fight crime and atone for their ancestors’ evil doings. Here is the opening sequence that explains the entire premise of the show (like many Hanna-Barbera cartoons are want to do).

This was a very clever series that merged the superhero genre as well as the monster genre. As you can see, the teens appeared normal until they called on their monster identities to fight evil. The three teens are Drak Jr (or just Drak), Frankie and Howler. They each had different abilities in their monster forms. To change into their monster personalities they high fived and yelled “WHACK-O!” (called the Drak Whack). Surprisingly, they went by the same names whether as regular teens or as the monsters which makes you wonder why they used secret identities. But I guess walking around as a 7 ft green monster would be a bit much. To get around they drove a bad ass hot rod called the Drakster which not only looked cool but had a ton of James Bond-ish gadgetry hiding within it.

I remember really enjoying this show. I only ever saw it a few times because the time that it aired constantly changed. I was always on the lookout for it but never could find it. It was released on DVD in Canada, but you can order it from Amazon (it’s Region 1, so you can watch it on a US DVD player). Unfortunately Netflix has not added it to their library just yet.

Definitely worth a look for monster fans as well as Hanna-Barbera fans. Another really great series staring every0ne’s favorite monsters as heroes.

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

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2009: The Groovie Goolies cartoon

Posted in cartoons, Frankenstein, Halloween, holiday, pop culture, TV shows, werewolves with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2009, cartoons, Frankenstein, Groovie Goolies, Halloween, monsters, pop culture, TV shows on October 12, 2009 by Paxton

Okay, the Frankenstein theme begins in earnest this week. All the entries from here on out will feature the giant, green skinned behemoth in some pop culture incarnation. This week’s entries will look at Frankenstein cartoons. Next week I’ll look at Frankenstein novels and the final week of AWESOME-tober-fest will be spent looking at Frankenstein movies.

So, like I said, this week is cartoons. Frankenstein has been in a bunch of cartoons. He’s headlined a few, been a part of a few. Let’s take a look at one of the more fun ones.

Today’s entry is The Groovie Goolies

This cartoon originally aired on TV between 1971 and 1972. The show was created by one of the best animation houses around, Filmation, who also created He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, She-Ra, Fat Albert & The Cosby Kids, Star Trek the animated series and many other of your favorite cartoons.

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ABC’s Awesome Saturday Morning Cartoon PSAs

Posted in cartoons, commercials, pop culture, TV with tags cartoons, commercials, nostalgia, pop culture, PSAs, TV on June 9, 2009 by Paxton

Most of us remember waking up as kids on Saturday morning around 6am just to watch cartoons. It was a ritual. I did it, and I loved it. There were so many good cartoons when I was a kid. But it wasn’t just cartoons shows I remember from my early Saturday morning viewings, I remember fun and musical public service announcements that would air during commercial breaks. We’ve all seen them. They have colorful characters, clever songs and wind up teaching us about our government, good eating habits or proper hygeine. The most remembered and visible of these public service announcements were the Schoolhouse Rock shorts. Airing on the ABC network, Schoolhouse Rock taught kids the Preamble to the Constitution, how your nervous system works and how a bill becomes a law. But ABC produced more than just the Schoolhouse Rock shorts. ABC produced scores of other cartoon PSAs with catchy tunes and fun mascots that taught kids about healthy eating and how to get a job. Many times these PSAs are lumped into Schoolhouse Rock when we think back on them, but they were separately produced with different voice actors.

Let’s look at some of the other awesome cartoon PSAs produced by ABC in the ’70s and ’80s. You will probably remember most of these, if not, your welcome for putting songs about nutty snack mix into your head for the next 12 hours.

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Time for Timer – ABC starting producing these “Timer” commercials in the early ’70s. These are probably the most remembered shorts next to Schoolhouse Rock as they played well into the 1990s. I actually didn’t realize this little guy’s name was Timer, even though I’ve seen the clips a thousand times and at the beginning of every one he says, “Time for Timer!”. I’m not even sure I knew what that meant. Now, I get it. Timer was supposed to represent a person’s “biological clock”. He carried around a giant stopwatch that went off whenever something was about to happen in the body (hunger, sleepiness, etc). None of the Timer shorts have titles, they are known by their catchy songs. His most famous is probably “Hanker for a Hunka Cheese!”. Another favorite of mine is “Sunshine on a Stick” where Timer teaches us how to make ice pops using orange juice. I remember actually doing this several times. I also love the “Eat Breakfast” short because the song is catchy (it actually reminds me of the songs in a Rankin-Bass Christmas Special). There’s also “U Are What U Eat” which features cool animation of the “factory” in your body. Timer was so popular that he actually made an appearance on Family Guy.

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The Grocery Aisle of long forgotten breakfast cereals Pt I

Posted in breakfast cereal, Cap'n Crunch, cartoons, food, nostalgia, Pac-Man, pop culture, TV shows with tags Batman, breakfast cereal, Cap'n Crunch, Ghostbusters, nostalgia, Pac-Man, pop culture, TV shows, video games on March 31, 2009 by Paxton

My good friend Steve emailed me a few weeks ago and asked me to write an article on a subject he and his wife had recently been discussing. He wanted me to talk about breakfast cereal. More specifically, he wanted me to talk about some of his favorite breakfast cereals he remembers when he was a kid. Now, Steve and I have known each other since first grade, but I won’t know all of his favorite breakfast cereals. So, I thought I’d take the general topic of cereal, and look at it from the nostalgia perspective.

There is a surprising amount of cereal box enthusiasts out there. If you go to Flickr, there are two main groups dedicated to cereal from the ’50s up through the ’90s. There are more groups than these two, but the two I’m talking about contain the majority of the images. So, scanning these groups, I thought I’d discuss some forgotten and long discontinued cereals that we may all remember. So, let’s head on over to your local Western Supermarket or Safeway, and walk down the Nostalgia aisle (Aisle 7c) and see what we all used to eat when we were kids. FYI…There were so many awesome, awesome cereals that I found that I decided to split this article into two parts. Come back later this week to see Part II. For any of the pictures below, click them to go to a bigger version (most likely on Flickr).

All set, then let’s begin with the first batch…

No talk about breakfast cereals is complete without talking about Capt. Horatio Magellan Crunch (aka Cap’n Crunch for the noobs). And if we are talking about the Cap’n, I’m going to have to talk about the elephant in the room. It is a harsh truth that all cereal enthusiasts are aware of. Cap’n Crunch is an incurable media whore. Currently, there’s like five versions of Cap’n Crunch on the shelves. That alone is enough, but if you look into the past, and include special editions, we are looking at a number north of 17 versions of Cap’n Crunch. Seriously. He will pimp his image/cereal out to any idea that comes across the table. Here are 9 versions of Cap”n Crunch you may have never seen.

Deep Sea Crunch? Vanilly Crunch? Seriously? And that’s not all of the images. How about Treasure Hunt Crunch? Or maybe you would prefer Choco-Donuts Crunch? This never ending parade of Crunch madness has got to end. The Cap’n is sick, he needs help.