Sesame Celebrity Highlight #4

Hey kids, wanna see something crazy?

Does Little Richard in a bubble bath playing a piano singing the Ernie classic 'Rubber Ducky' count?

Cool.

Cosplay of the day #13

Chun Li

Mickey Mouse and The Mad Doctor

Here's one to watch on this horrible day with all the wind and rain blowing outside your window: The Mad Doctor staring Mickey Mouse. This cartoon is getting a heavy nod in the forthcoming Epic Mickey game coming on the Wii, which is delving into the forgotten history of Disney and Mickey, and you can see why the picked it; it's amazingly dark and spooky and The Mad Doctor looks like he could be the poster boy the the 'Classic Cartoon Villains Club'. He is one bad man. For a cartoon made in 1933 this looks A M A Z I N G! Love it.


Here's a glimpse of what to expect with Epic Mickey: there's nods to Fantasia, The Mad Doctor, Oswald The Rabbit, Peter Pan and much more I would imagine. If this game is as good as the source material it will be a must have for me this Christmas!

Judo Boy and his adictive theme tune

I just stumbled across the opening for the wonderfully titles anime series, Judo Boy, and oh my god does this get stuck in your head! There doesn't seem to be an English dub of it anywhere I can find and I'm not sure if there is one, so I don't know much about this show at all, but it does seem to have been translated into Spanish if that helps anyone. It's pretty impressive for a foreign language theme song to get so stuck in your head and this one really does. The amount of repetition in it is pretty comical, I'm sure they could have trimmed this to a lean 30 seconds! All I get stuck in my head is the tune and the word 'boy', which is repeated again and again. It goes something like this:

Da da BOY, da dada da da da BOY, da dada da daaaaaa!
Da da BOY, da dada da da da BOY, da dada da daaaaaa!
Da da BOY, da dada da da da BOY, da dada da daaaaaa!
Da da BOY, da dada da da da BOY, da dada da daaaaaa! (repeat forever)

I also love the title, Judo Boy. There's something wonderfully blunt and to the point about it.

Prepare to get this stuck in your head!

Claymation Michael

Michael Jackson. There is A LOT you can say about the guy and a lot of opinions to be had. I think the man made some of the finest pop albums of all time and like to focus on that more than all the crazy surgery, court cases and all encompassing insanity that became a bigger and bigger part of his life. 'Bad' has to be the first album I was ever truly aware of growing up, and for a lot of people around my age that's their first real awakening to the big, strange world of music. Another thing MJ fans would have seen when growing up is the jawdroppingly odd Moonwalker film. There is, in hindsight, so much that is completely mental about this film (dog fairgrounds, the Bad video done by kids, Joe Pesci getting all the worlds kids hooked on drugs, MJ turning into a transformer etc.), but when you are younger I think the madness washes over you a bit better and the whole thing comes out as a big, loud, shiny, neon spectacle. That's what kids like right, bright colours and loud bangs?

Well one of the stand out sections of the film is the Speed Demon music video directed by Claymation big wig Will Vinton. This is in my opinion the best part of Moonwalker, where MJ outwits his bloodthirsty fans by turning into a claymation rabbit who rides a motorbike. As you do. He also turns into a claymation Pee Wee Herman, Sylvester Stallone and Tina Turner just for kicks. It doesn't make a damn bit of sense but it is very fun to watch and it's a great song too. The claymation is also top notch. It's wonderfully expressive and has a really grotesque edge to it which I just love.


Vinton also worked on films like Return To Oz, The Adventures of Mark Twain and shows like The PJ's but he made a name for himself directing the California Raisins adverts where he and MJ would collaborate a second time. If you thought that Rabbit Michael is strange then you have not seen him as piece of dry fruit! AMAZING! Yet more proof that America really does know how to make great adverts.

Popeye The Sailor Meets Sinbad The Sailor

It's Sunday. I'm at work. I'm feeling rough. What's needed is one of my all time favourite cartoons ever: Popeye The Sailor Meets Sinbad The Sailor. I had this on VHS when I was a tiny person and I've always loved it. This is Popeye at his very best. Great use of the characters, great backgrounds, great fights and Wimpy following a duck around with a meat grinder gets a big thumbs up from me.

MUST BE WATCHED!

Nickelodeon's taste in garage-surf-punk-stuff

Nickelodeon has turned out some great shows over the years; Doug, Rocko's Modern Life, Spongebob Squarepants, Rugrats and so on... but it turns out some of the bods at head office also have some sweet taste in music. Ever get a feeling you couldn't quite put your finger on when the opening to Rocko's Modern Life came on? That's cause it's The B-52s Fred Schneider and Kate Pierson laying down the vocals. Awesome!

The B-52s are clearly not shy of the cartoon world, lest we forget this:

And if you think that's bad then wise up and listen to this...

Yeah the BC-52s don't look so bad now do they?

But there's also another garage-surf gem lurking in the Nicktoon archive. The much missed Lux Interior, front man of The Cramps, one of the darkest and dirtiest bands out there, provided vocals for a song on Spongebob Square pants, one of the sunniest & funnest programs to come out of Nick-Studios. See and hear for yourself:

NICE! They must be blasting out some good tunes on the office stereo at Nick HQ. Good work people! Who would have thought, let's get this guy on our family friendly cartoon?