Hey party people, here is my latest video, The Most- as in which superhero is the most- pick a category. I’m sure you know how much us superhero fans enjoy arguing about superheroes. Who’s the strongest, who’s the fastest, etc. Well this (possible) series will help answer those questions (inspire heated debate, depending on how much you disagree with me). In this first video, I go over the strongest, smartest, fastest, most powerful and most dexterous superheroes! I basically go down a list of basic role playing stats!
For those of you interested, I’ll go into more boring details of what’s up in Toonocity world. For the most part, I’m still stuck at home watching my two sons. Which doesn’t leave me much time for anything else. I’m often amazed that I manage to keep getting videos done! It’s hard for me to even keep up with my nerdy hobbies. I sure hope you are having a better time, during this pandemic time. One thing I just did, was re-watch The Umbrella Academy season 1, to get myself ready for season 2. And wow, Season 1 is such an up-grade from the comicbook. Mind you, while the comicbook is great, the show cuts down on the bug nuts crazy and increases the emotion roller coaster of everyone. In reminds me of what James Gunn did with the Guardians of the Galaxy. All the characters are tragically flawed, and only have each other for support. Which creates an amazing blend of humor and sadness to the story. And, overall, makes to care for the characters all the more. I find it very rare that the Hollywood production is superior to the comic. But Steve Blackman, just crushed it here. I so can’t wait for season 2.
Either way, that’s all for now. Hope you enjoy the video and I’ll ‘see’ ya next month!
Wowie, wow, wow, wow! Creating videos is hard work! This one took longer than I hoped, and it was aided by the fact that I started to do a little bit more writing for Anititcool.com. You can swing by there and read some of my, “This Week in Comics” articles. That, plus preschools being closed just makes my spare time disappear before I know I have it!
Anyway, this video is about DC Comics- my first comicbook love. DC’s, and comics in general’s best decades were the 40’s, 60’s and 80’s. So this video is about the Top Ten stuff DC published in the 1980’s. I gotta say, it was pretty hard coming up with the list. DC just put out so much good stuff that decade. It probably didn’t help that, that was also the time I started reading comics! I got a few subscriptions for Christmas gifts (FF and Marvel Team-Up), started using my allowance on buying Justice League of America and others at the grocery store, and eventually convinced by parents and older brother and sister to drive me to a comicbook store once a month! That turned weekly once I was able to drive. To date myself, one of my first comics bought at the comicbook store was Blue Devil #1 (I somehow thought that series was going to follow me all the way up today! Little did I know back then how fast things would get canceled!). But still 80’s was a great time, beyond my personal connection. Aside from the top ten list, I have 24 items in the Honor Mentions section! So I tell you honestly, I can’t wait to hear your complaints about this list. Because just about everything DC was doing at this time was so good! So have at it and enjoy, and I’ll see ya next time.
It’s often been said that Batman used to run around with a handgun and kill people. But, is that really true? Check out his first 14 issues, Detective Comics #27-39 and Batman Comics #1 to find out! Though while we are at it, how many did Robin kill???
Our latest video is up! Superhero-pow goes over every superhero team, to see which one of them could actually beat the world’s greatest superheroes, the Justice League (of America)!
And I gotta say, this was a bear to put together! More images in this one than any other video. Let’s just say I’m glad it’s done!
Hey party people, I’ve been trolling around the internet of late, visiting animation websites and such, and I see a lot of bad mouthing of Filmation. The so called ‘crappy animation studio’- well listen up butt munch, that is not Filmation’s legacy! If Filmation had one fatal flaw, it’s that they never had a successful original character. All their big hits: The New Adventures of Superman, The Archies, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, Shazam!, Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, and He-Man are all owned by someone else. So they can’t go down in history like Hanna-Barbera for The Flintstones, Yogi Bear or Scooby-Doo, because they never had a true original hit. I suppose Isis would be the closest one, but it was a live action show. It’s a real shame that they had all those hours of great cartoons, that they could never fully call their own.
Getting back to the concept of them having crappy cartoons, face facts, in that time period, everyone made ‘crappy’ cartoons for TV! We were a long way away from The Simpsons, Duck Tales and Batman: The Animated Series! Back in 1976 HB’s Jabber jaw and Clue Club were just as crappy as Filmation’s Batman and Fat Albert. Now, this is not to take away the crazy fun of these shows. I’m talking about weak scripts and cheap animation. So saying Filmation made crappy cartoons is like saying a fast food restaurant makes crappy food- all fast food restaurants make crappy food.
Now let me tell you about Filmation kicking @$$ in animation. Have you ever seen their Flash Gordon TV movie? I’m not talking about the TV series they ripped up from the movie, I’m talking the actually movie! It was made for a primetime audience and has more violence and sex appeal than anything HB ever put out. They even got Nazis in it; something Marvel could barely do in the latest Captain America movie! The animation is great, especially for the time period- the spaceships look like computer animation, being rotoscoped off models. This movie is clearly Filmation’s best work, showing what they could do with the more money and less restrains from Standards and Practices.
As for Filmations stock footage, yes they over used it, but they were making Saturday morning cartoons for very little, while keeping production in the USA- no other studio can say that! And while the animation was over used, most of it still looked frick’n great: from Fat Albert and the gang walking down the street to Tarzan diving into a river, no one had anything else that looked that good. A lot of it was rotoscoped, to be fair, but I’m sure Ralph Bakshi wishes he had rotoscop animators as good as the ones Filmation had. Fully animated scenes from He-man and Tarzan look better than the one’s in Bakshi’s, Fire and Ice (a feature film from the same time period). And what about Filmation character designs? They easily had the best designs in the industry. The Star Trek characters are all spot on. Their Batman looked completely ripped compared the one in the SuperFriends (sorry Toth). Tarzan, the Lone Range, Zorro- they all looked great! Even their comedies, like the Groovie Goolies and Fat Albert had great designs. So while the animation was limited, the designs looked great.
Filmation did go overboard with their educational messages in their shows- that’s true. Though again, it wasn’t completely their fault since the Networks dictated this to them. They did embrace it as a way of life way more than Hanna-Barbera or anyone else, who wasn’t on PBS. I remember being a kid yelling at the TV, just punch him Batman! Heck, I’d seen Adam West do it all the time! And for advice on making friends, leave that to Mr. Rogers, not He-man. Not that I’m totally against the education messages- Zorro and the Lone Ranges had history trivia which I think is far more interesting than a lesson about lying (which should have been frick’n obvious from the show!).
So in closing Filmation did not make crappy cartoons. They made cartoons that reflected their time period, and nearly all of them were above average.
Yes, I’ve been spending some of my spare time with one. If you’re not a child of the 70’s like me, then you might not know about the awesomeness that was/is the Mego Batcave (you can check out pictures here- http://www.megomuseum.com/wgsh/playsets/batcave.html ). The toy company Mego had the rights to pretty much all things superheroes back in the 60’s and 70’s. And their 8 inch figure line was clearly the best, featuring action figures with real cloth clothing- boots, capes everything, very cool. Infact the bodies were pretty much identical, only the heads and costume changed for the different characters, from say the Human Torch to Joker. One of their first playsets for the figures was the Batcave! Foldout cardstock covered in plastic, barely two stories high, and covered in cool marker illustrations. It featured the Batsignal, which yes did shine a bat shaped light on the wall, the bat pole, and the batcomputer (which was the cheapest piece of the set).
Anyway, I was lucky enough to have one as a boy, and still have it to this day. So, I pulled it out of storage and set it up the other day, bring Batman and Robin, and the Batmobile with it. They have all gone through some mighty battles, let me tell ya! These aren’t collector’s items, these are toys that saw heavy action! Infact, Riddler and Penguin (never had Joker) haven’t survived to this day. In setting it up, I knew I was missing the Batcomputer, for so long, that I don’t even remember what it looked like! So I looked online and saw pictures of it’s design! I snagged a picture, copied it in Illustrator, and tada! I now have a Batcomputer, crazy! Then I took measurements for my missing Batpole, one trip to the hardware store and- tada! I now have a Batpole! Last thing on my list is the Batsignal, thankfully I still have it, I’m sure it would cost a ton on ebay. And it kinda works, but it needs some work. Hopefully I can find someone to tighten it up and it will be smooth sailing again.
It’s pretty cool to see it all set-up again. This was my toy of toys for many years- before the Atari showed up. Watching Adam West in reruns, or the cool Filmation cartoon reruns on the vacuum tube TV, blue bath towel around my neck and having my own adventures with the dynamic duo, thanks to Mego- and my parents! If you really loved your childhood, I don’t see why you should let go of it. Sure you might have to pay bills and work a crummy job, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go back and remember the Batmoblie ripping around the house, and still be able to hold it in your hands, proof that it all happened and it was all good. Now, if only I had the Batcopter to perch on top the Batcave….
The Offical blog of Toonocity
http://www.toonocity.com/