animated pop #2 - The Milli Vanilli scandal

Anyone else remember when Milli Vanilli, everyone's favorite Germanic lip-syncers appeared on the Super Mario Bros. 3 cartoon? Yeah, that happened. The Super Mario Bros. 3 cartoon was a pretty poor show but this episode is perhaps best because it's got such a wafer thin storyline bolstering one big "hey look who we've got on the Mario Bros 3. show kids... Millia fuckin' Vanilli". How cool right? Well, 2 weeks after this show first went on screens there was the big Milli Vanilli lip-sync scandal and so the episode was edited to remove all Milli Vanilli's music, instead replacing it with a really bad instrumental but of rock-muzak. They didn't edit the animation so they still move their lips to nothing though... how fitting.

Apart from that this episode is just funny because they say Milli Vanilli a lot and their accents are pretty hilarious! I don't know if that's their real voices or some actors doing the worst novelty Germany accents ever... watch the whole 'I'll turn you into accountants' bit in video 2. It's gold.

animated pop #1

In the build up to Gorillaz Glasto headline slot and dull as drug water live showing with Lou Reed (heroin's a hell of a drug) I saw a T4/Aviva/something-or-other showing of their show earlier this year at the Roundhouse where they were described as the most successful animated band in the world...

yeah...

who are they up against, really. All those other cartoon bands?

Well, my top 3 cartoon bands that aren't to Gorillaz are:

#3 - Josie & The Pussy Cats
Amazing opening theme lyrics: 'long tails and ears for hats'


#2 - The Archies
TUNE!


#1 M.C.Skat Kat
The cartoon cat, sorry, kat, from Paula Abdul's 'Opposites Attract' video who went on to release his own flop solo album and guest on a celebrity pro-recycling re-hash of 'Yakety-yak don't talk back' with Bugs Bunny and Ozzy Osbourne, Stevie Wonder & Pat Benatar. Now that's a career!

... and see the Yakety Yak vid for shocking 90's pop hell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAYUvKUBa7Q

The George Lucas / The Police axis of evil

So everyone hates Sting right, that's pretty much a given.

And as for George Lucas, well, even if you are a massive, massive Star Wars fan boy you surely must have given up on this no neck, charmless, knitted jumper of a man at some point during his decades of raping his own legacy. I have no beef with the original Wars films but after the whole prequel thing I'm not sure if I want to go back to all that. Plus I work in a shop that sells loads of novelty Star Wars t-shirts and see people pointing and laughing at pictures of Chewbacca all the time, and that's a bit of a drain.

But anyways, I do remember the Droids and Ewoks 'toons being pretty good spin offs, back in the days before everything had to be digitally enhanced and big George decided he didn't like amazing big ass puppets any more.

But then there is something unsavory going on in Droids that I never noticed as a youngster... watch the intro, doesn't that sound just like Sting singing "I've got no weapons in my hand / just these brains designed by man".

GAG!

But wait, no... seems it's not Sting, everyone's fantasy punching bag, it's the Polices drummer (who's name I can't be bothered to find out). He wrote and sang the song, and for a guy who supposedly hated Sting so much he:
- arranged all his cymbals on stage to block out all view of the Stinger
- had a picture if Stings face on his snare so he could bash the shit out of it to some cod-reggae-pop-rock during their gigs.
(please note, i have a feeling only one of these is true and the other applies to another drummer in a band who hated his singer... maybe it was The Jam. I hate them too so whatever)

Anyway, for a guy who hated Sting so much, he sure as hell sounds a lot like him. Dudes got issues. Get help.

Donal Duck and WW2 propaganda

BANNED 'TOON NO. 1

There were a lot of propaganda cartoons made in World War Two and they are really strange to see now as they are so out and out racist that you can't quite believe that these are house hold name, family cartoon characters sparing with some very broadly drawn stereotypes.

This is perhaps one of the strangest: Donald Duck living in Nazi Germany. Obviously he hates it and the end of the story is so flag waving and American it's funny, but obviously these kinds of cartoons were made for propaganda. It's just unlike anything you will ever see now or in recent times.

Short version... this shit's just fuckin' strange to see!

Side note: Reading the comments to this on youtube really does show the shocking level of ignorance of the people who leave comments on there. Horrible people with horrible brains... or lack of.

Not enough cartoons...

When I was little I went to see a play, well pantomime, but when I was asked what I thought I said "Hmph, not enough cartoons". I don't really remember saying this, I've been told that was my response, but it don't doubt it for a second. Cartoons have always been magic and that doesn't wear off. Example of which, this Popeye cartoon. As a wee lad I had an old VHS of 3 Popeye cartoons from the 1930's that had been watched so much that the tracking on it was completely gone and took longer than any other video we owned to tune in, but when it was it was total joy. I've re-discovered these episodes again and they are still amazing and now I'm older and have watched a lot of cartoons you notice how great the animation and voice acting is. The guy who voiced Popeye is so good in these old episodes; always rapid fire talking under his breath without any animation, which they fazed out in the later cartoons. This old school of animation is so detailed and fluid and nothing else looks like that. Watching something from the 80s like He-Man and the animation is lazy and re-used continually, where as nearly every motion of this is so fluid and unique. If cartoons still looked like this I would freak out!

Anyway, this is a 30s Popeye episode I only found today but it totally has all the qualities of what I love about the stuff on that VHS I was watching as a kid.

Enjoy.