Cosplay of the day #8

Spider-man with black costume

Cosplay of the day #7

Voltron

Q) Tired of sex? A) Superhero tattoos

So the guy says to the tattooist "Nah, you go ahead and do it... I don't need to get laid anymore". And so it was done.





Note: there are some good superhero tattoos, but it's a very fine line that's for sure.
This one's pretty great...

Cosplay of the day #6

My Neighbour Totoro

Mickey History

I've been looking at a lot of the first Mickey Mouse cartoons recently and trying to see what I can find out about probably the biggest cartoon star in history. Certainly there must be kids who have not seen a Mickey cartoon in their lives, seeing as he's not really a big name on TV or films anymore, but they will all know who he is. His legacy as a pop culture icon is still as strong as ever but it's a shame to forget the wealth of pictures this guy has been in and why he's so popular in the first place. I'll probably post more classic Mickey pics in the future but for know this is 'The Karnival Kid' from 1929 which is the first time he ever spoke, and his first words where 'Hotdogs'. Gotta love that!

This is a great example of just how out there early cartoons where. There's no attempt at realism in the movements of the characters and it's completely free flowing and feels really spontaneous, even though this obviously took an age to put together. In this film there's cows floating on balloons, Minnie being a 'hoochy koochy' dancer, Mickey selling living hotdogs that dance (which he also stabs and spanks), there's a monkey one-man-band, Mickey lifts of the top of his skull like it was a hat and two cats sing in a really bizarre musical number. It's ahead of its time in terms of oddness. Also, the sound is wonderfully raw. Most of the dialogue is hard to understand and the scene where Minnie is smelling hotdogs is so overly loud it sounds like a motorbike starting. It's completely out of place, but this all ads to the magic.

Watch a bit of cartoon history. It's great stuff.

Ray Charles & A Crumbeling City

This is a pretty fantastic marrying of music and film. This is the big climax of Metropolis, the 2001 anime movie based on the manga written by legendary Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka in 1949. The combo on the amazing Ray Charles song 'I Can't Stop Loving You' and the destruction of this vast futuristic city is pretty special stuff and has stuck in my head ever since I saw it. There's something magic about those big harmonies and relaxed swing playing against this. Enjoy, and check the film out if you'v not already seen it. Now I'm off to try and track down a copy of the manga that doesn't cost over £50 (yeah right Amazon... that ain't happening).



More Ray Charles action coming soon on Life On Goon Island.

Cosplay of the day #5

Yoda from Star Wars

"Behold my mighty chest!" - A look at celebrity action figures

Action figures based on celebrities in films are guilty of two things:
1) Crazy proportioned bodies. Often they make these guys into super beefcakes.
2) Crazy faces. Either they look nothing like the actor at all or just do something rather strange and disturbing with their face.

Here's a choice few:

Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park and Independence Day
Who would have though Jeff Goldblum would have action figures. They both come with classic toy line staple of accessories that were not in the film, hence the massive cannons he has with both figures. His Independence Day toy is also buff beyond belief; his torso is huge and you can practically see veins popping off his muscular arms and hands.



Bob Hoskins in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? / Super Mario Bros. The Movie
Another surprise actor to have multiple action figures. Now Bob Hoskins is great but his Roger Rabbit toy is possibly the most boring thing ever. Now I see why they ofter packed these toys with giant missile launchers and stuff that wasn't in the film. It's because if you don't you get a man in a hat in a box. Play time! The Mario one is better but not by much. These guys look like dead eyed, squat, hunch backs but that's still better than the Eddie Valiant toy.



Mark Hamill in Star Wars
The change in style from the original 70's/80's toys to the ones that came out in the late 90's before the release of the new films is pretty shocking. The original toys get his fresh faced farm boy look down pretty well. With the new one I think he is feeling the steroids much more that his is the force... this guy is stacked! Look at how toned his legs are!


Raoul Julia in Street Fighter
Another fail in the big, over all mega-fail that was the live action Street Fighter film. Looks pretty M. Bison-esque but doesn't look like Raoul Julia.


Sly Stallone in Rambo
Oh my God, look at the size of his head! It's nearly the same size as his torso!


Robin Williams in Hook
Massive chest and shoulders alert. I'm pretty sure Robin Williams has never been buff and that he never had a rocket launching jet pack in the film. Also, they really haven't tried with the face.


Warren Beatty and Al Pachino in Dick Tracy
The faces on these are pretty good although they all have big pouting fish lips. What's more disturbing is they way they all look like the have rickets in their legs.


John Goodman in The Flintstones Movie
This is a good representation of John Goodman but those eyes and that smile are just creeping me out. Also, Flintstones The Movie toys don't strike me as being the most 'action' of figures. What games are you going to play with squat little versions of John Goodman, Rick Moranis and Rosie O'Donnell? It's no He-Man is it?

Cosplay of the day #4

Bunsen and Beaker from The Muppet Show

Street Fighter Tattoo

Strong look indeed.

Happy Birthday Mario

A few days ago a certain Italian plumber turned 25... a certain super famous, incredibly stereotyped and super sure sign of quality mascot turned 25. It can only be Mario: Nintendo's number one guy and every Italians nightmare.

It's strange realising that you are older than Mario, one of the cornerstones of growing up (at least in my age group). He's one of those characters who seemed like he was always there, even though he wasn't, and always seemed so much more lovable than other video game mascots even though none of them had a lot of depth. The upper hand Mario had was that his games were pretty much a million miles better than anything else, and when you have that who cares about wafer thin plot and shocking Italian stereotypes (honestly it seems like a videogame Dolmio advert).

So anyways, the boss man made his first appearance in Donkey Kong under the name Jump Man, later to be named Mario. The whole Italian plumber thing hadn't been established yet and for a while he was known as a carpenter, until everything fell into the shape we know now. Anyway, the Donkey Kong arcade was MASSIVE at the time and so a kids cartoon came out, with Donkey Kong and Mario acting as both hero and villain depending on who you wanted to rout for. There's a 'Catch the pigeon' vibe going on, with one chasing the other, and you know Mario's never gonna catch Donkey, but it's still fun, even though you know the story will never progress past point 1. What is also interesting is this is before the idea of 'MARIO' had really been established (as we know him today), meaning he is totally different from the character we know know and is more of a second fiddle to Donkey Kong, who is still a legend but doesn't have nearly as much clout as the M man has today. Proof that all good thing come to those who wait.




After all the Donkey Kong biz Mario became a star in his own right with Super Mario Bros. on the NES. However, the Mario Bros. movie staring Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper didn't do much to help his cause at hitting the big time, but unbeknown to many of us over here, there was what seems to be a perfectly reasonable Mario Bros. anime film that came out in Japan at the start of Mario mania. It was never released or translated anywhere outside of Japan but can now be view thanks to fan subtitles on youtube. It's ok, it's not great, it's not awful but it's better than any Mario cartoon series... and I could tell that just by watching at work with the sound off! I've posted the begging of the film and the section where Peach gets Bowser to turn into a drag act, no shit this does happen!! The rest of the film is on there and the rest will hopefully be uploaded to youtube soon. Worth seeing if you are in to this kind of thing.

(Bellow is the Bowser drag queen bit)


Whatever... wish the big guy a happy birthday! Here's to the inevitably amazing Mario game on the 3DS!

Cosplay of the day #3

Starscream from Transformers

Life lessons

These are troubling times and young people are presented with all sorts of difficult choices to make in their lives, and the best way to keep on the strait and narrow is to listen to the sage like advice of puppets, men in silly costumes and talking animals. Let's stop and take care of ourselves for a minute.

Don't smoke:


Eat right:


Stay in school:


Say 'NO':


Don't do drugs:


ALWAYS USE BALLOONS RESPONSIBLY!!!:

Cosplay of the day #2

Blanka from Street Fighter

Sesame Celebrity Highlight #2

Another amazing celebrity guest on Sesame Street - Mr Stevie Wonder!

Cosplay of the day #1

A tribute to people who dress up as stuff.

Raphael:

"You know, for kids!" - Top 5 cartoons based on inappropriate source material

When making a cartoon spin off of something you would usually expect the source material to be something kid appropriate. For example, the Droids and Ewoks cartoons that came from the Star Wars series: kids have seen the films, already have a load of toys and these are some of the more cuddly/silly characters from the series so they make nice non-threatening family viewing and the parents hopefully won't complain about anything. It wouldn't make sense to make a cartoon series out of Comando would it? Wait, maybe it would. Kids always manage to see things they're not supposed to, so while there are no kids in the cinema watching action films like Terminator 2, they've all seen it on video at home and are playing it in the playground. The big guys in suits smoking cigars know this so they commission action figures and toy spin offs of popular 18 and 15 certificate movies. The parents aren't gonna like it but it's gonna happen. I can remember going into Woolworths and seeing toys for Last Action Hero and thinking "who is buying these things?" I don't think many people who were actually over 15 were going to see that film so why was someone expecting children to buy toys of a crappy film they weren't supposed to see? It does not make sense!

Well anyway, this sort of thing did happen a lot so here are the top 5 cartoon spin offs to inappropriate source material:

5 - Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
You take this:
Super campy B-movie spoof that involved people getting killed by giant killer tomatoes. It's not a very serious film. It was also made in 1978 and the animated series didn't come out until 1990 so what the hell? Well, sequels starting coming out in the late 80s after some footage from the original film was used in a scene in Muppet Babies (stick with me here). The episode was one of the most popular in the series, so much so that the producers contacted the guys who made the original Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes to make some sequels and gave them two million dollars to do it! The knock of this was a few more sequels, the cartoon series, comics, videogames and toys, and George Clooney was in one of the sequels! Epic!


And turn it into this:
The story picks up after "The Great Tomatoe War" and follows a mutant tomatoe who has turned into a human girl, a cute furry tomatoe dog and a regular boy fighting against an evil doctor trying to take over the world with his evil mutant tomatoes. Also, tomaotes are outlawed in this strange post-apocayptic future. No tomatoes actually kill anyone, dispite the title.
I'm sure this made more sense when I watched it at the time.



4 - Police Academy - The Series
You take this:
A group of misfit police recruits make cock jokes and other forms of low brow humor, torment their superiors and somehow solve crimes.


And turn it into this:
The same thing but without all the cock gags, just a bit more goofy slapstick.



3 - Robocop
You take this:
A policeman who is brutally murdered by the dad from That 70s show, Dr. Romano from E.R. and some other bad guys has his brain and body turned into a futuristic robot law enforcing machine. He has a big gun hidden inside his leg and kills the bad guys.


And turn it into this:
Mortally wounded policeman (no hand getting shot off scenes here) is turned into a robot super cop. Now the story has a more futuristic setting with more robots to fight and lazers instead of bullets. I'm pretty sure no one got covered in toxic waste and melted when they got hit by a car either.



2 - Rambo and the Forces of Freedom
You take this:
One mentally scared, ex-Vietnam war vet who is a one man killing machine. He blows shit up, shoots big guns and chops people up with a huge knife. He also makes a real meal out of doing up the laces on his boots.


And turn it into this:
Rambo is part of a G.I. Joe-esque combat force out to save the world from some dudes out to do no good. He uses violence as a last resort and no one dies.


1 - Toxic Crusaders
You take this:
B-movie horror / comedy / gross out superhero spoof The Toxic Avenger: a weedy dork gets dumped in a load of toxic waste and transformed into a super-strong and super-deformed hero. He kills goofy villains, and someone who may or may not be Ron Jeremy, in grotesque/comic fashion and also gets it on with a blind girl.


And turn it into this:
Dorky guy gets mutated and assembles a band of similarly disfigured do-gooders who protect their town from being polluted by bad guys... kind of like the Turtles meets Captain Planet but as ugly as Madballs. This show did not do very well but they still made a video game and toy line out if it, because that's what kids want, action figures based on people who have been hideously disfigured by toxic waste. "You know, FOR KIDS!"

Food addiction!

As a little shout out to my pals over at rad food blog Dinnergeddon I take a look into cartoon characters and their rather unhealthy obsessions with food. These are some of the worst cartoon food addicts who need help:

MONTEREY JACK : Cheese
I guess being a mouse named after a type of cheese this would be inevitable, but this guy LOVES his cheese. It's like crack to the little guy. He's gotta have it, no matter how many toilet plungers get shot at him. Are plungers like humane mouse traps or something?



WIMPY : Hamburgers
This guy is a stone cold hustler for a hamburger, be stealing, taking out loans or resorting to prostitution, he will get his burger one way or another.




SONIC : Chili dogs
For no reason at all Sonic loves the chili dogs. It doesn't tie in with the games or anything. I guess he just loves the yummy goodness.

But don't worry kids, he knows how to stay healthy.



THE TURTLES : Pizza
A very well established food addiction right... but this video shows the downright depravity of their pizza addiction. Seriously, these guys would do terrible things in dark alleyways for a slice of quatro fromagio, but probably nothing darker or more degrading than this song.


POPEYE : Doesn't care as long as you pay him!
You may think that this man is all about the healthy goodness of spinach but Popeye is actually addicted to MONEY! Give the man a big stack of cash and he will sell whatever crap you want him to! Popeye selling Campbell's soup... I feel so dirty now.






OFFICER BIG MAC : His own vital organs
We're through the looking glass here people! I know the Hamburgeler needs it so bad he resorts to crime but Officer Big Mac, the head cop in Macdonaldsland, is so full on he will EAT HIS OWN HEART OUT for your love. If someone sent me this Valentine message I would be rather afraid. You can say 'I give you my heart' or something like that but you don't think of them physically pulling it out, but this just makes me think of a man with a burger face gnawing away at his own chest. Wrong on many levels.