Up later than I should be
YouTube cartoons have become my new addiction. I just finished watching Samurai Champloo this afternoon, and I must say it is an absolutely delightful piece of work. Not quite as dark, not quite as moody as Cowboy Bebop, it nevertheless manages to effortlessly combine hotness with rocking, a combo which I feel safe saying will always be popular in my book.
I just want to say that I never understood why Lupin III never became a phenomenon in the States. It's a perfect blend of James Bond, Indiana Jones, and total thievery, was originally directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and it's all wrapped in an exceptionally amusing anime shell-- what, I ask you sirs and madams, what is not to love? There are heists! Virtually the entire premise is based around these heists? How is that not an automatic win?
I was having a conversation with Kari over IM this evening about how much I am pleased when things which are conceptually awesome become things which are factually awesome. I am a somewhat devoted follower of a webcomic based solely around the pursuit of illustrating things that would be conceptually awesome (this comic is The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, and it deals with such subjects as "what would happen when a doctor who is also a ninja faces off against pirates?" and "what would happen when a doctor who is also a ninja faces off against banditos riding velociraptors?").
This is part of the reason why I like Samurai Champloo. "Let's put some samurai on a journey, add some ass-kicking fight scenes and amazing production values, and top it off with some hip-hop grooves." This, to me, is a formula for success.
I have been known, however, to appreciate cartoons that may in fact be awesome solely in the realm of the hypothetical. In 1995, for instance, when Hanna Barbera approached an eleven-year-old Nate Ewert-Krocker and said "we're going to make a cartoon about these cats that fly a jet plane and kick total ass and then accompany it with wailing guitars," I said "sirs I appreciate that you cater to my individual tastes."
And then there is the third category, the cartoons which are only awesome once executed, the kind which on the drawing board look like they must have been the product of those thousand proverbial monkeys trying to hammer out a Shakespeare script. The ones most often cited in discussions I've partaken in are the fondly-remembered "Disney Afternoon," in which such concepts as The Jungle Book Plus Air Pirates, Let's Give Goofy a Suburban Sitcom, and Mercenary Rescue Squad: Rodents made an appearance.
Seriously, who came up with those ideas? And who green-lighted them? It says a lot about Disney in the early 90s that even their TV animators, when given ideas like those, produced the lovable and entertaining shows we all remember so fondly (or at least I do, you guys can show some love in the comments if you agree or disagree). Of course, this was all following the king of good ideas: DuckTales. I think we can all agree that if you don't like DuckTales, there's something fundamentally wrong with you, your childhood, or your sense of what is "totally sweet."
Okay, I don't really have any more to say about this. I think I may go see if YouTube has some old Goof Troop episodes, because God knows I'm not going to sleep, which would be the intelligent thing.
I just want to say that I never understood why Lupin III never became a phenomenon in the States. It's a perfect blend of James Bond, Indiana Jones, and total thievery, was originally directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and it's all wrapped in an exceptionally amusing anime shell-- what, I ask you sirs and madams, what is not to love? There are heists! Virtually the entire premise is based around these heists? How is that not an automatic win?
I was having a conversation with Kari over IM this evening about how much I am pleased when things which are conceptually awesome become things which are factually awesome. I am a somewhat devoted follower of a webcomic based solely around the pursuit of illustrating things that would be conceptually awesome (this comic is The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, and it deals with such subjects as "what would happen when a doctor who is also a ninja faces off against pirates?" and "what would happen when a doctor who is also a ninja faces off against banditos riding velociraptors?").
This is part of the reason why I like Samurai Champloo. "Let's put some samurai on a journey, add some ass-kicking fight scenes and amazing production values, and top it off with some hip-hop grooves." This, to me, is a formula for success.
I have been known, however, to appreciate cartoons that may in fact be awesome solely in the realm of the hypothetical. In 1995, for instance, when Hanna Barbera approached an eleven-year-old Nate Ewert-Krocker and said "we're going to make a cartoon about these cats that fly a jet plane and kick total ass and then accompany it with wailing guitars," I said "sirs I appreciate that you cater to my individual tastes."
And then there is the third category, the cartoons which are only awesome once executed, the kind which on the drawing board look like they must have been the product of those thousand proverbial monkeys trying to hammer out a Shakespeare script. The ones most often cited in discussions I've partaken in are the fondly-remembered "Disney Afternoon," in which such concepts as The Jungle Book Plus Air Pirates, Let's Give Goofy a Suburban Sitcom, and Mercenary Rescue Squad: Rodents made an appearance.
Seriously, who came up with those ideas? And who green-lighted them? It says a lot about Disney in the early 90s that even their TV animators, when given ideas like those, produced the lovable and entertaining shows we all remember so fondly (or at least I do, you guys can show some love in the comments if you agree or disagree). Of course, this was all following the king of good ideas: DuckTales. I think we can all agree that if you don't like DuckTales, there's something fundamentally wrong with you, your childhood, or your sense of what is "totally sweet."
Okay, I don't really have any more to say about this. I think I may go see if YouTube has some old Goof Troop episodes, because God knows I'm not going to sleep, which would be the intelligent thing.
posted by Nate at 8:39 PM
3 Comments:
Look, Ums...sometimes, some crimes go slipping through the cracks.
But uh, these two gumshoes are picking up the slack.
Yepyepyep.
I will show love for everything but Goof Troop. I'll never stop loving Goofy. But Goofy with kids? LAME kids at that? No way, man.
Not for me.
You also forgot to mention the most unbelievable green-light of them all. Who allowed a cartoon to be made about TEENAGE. MUTANT. NINJA. TURTLES.
???
It's absurd beyond words, and every time I think about it, I find it more unbelievable that someone ever agreed to that. Still. Good times.
*Good times.*
As far as the Turtles go, you've got to remember that they were a comic book first-- A couple of guys named Eastman and Laird came up with the idea while drunk, or high, or something, and then decided they should give it a go and see if it worked. It did pretty well as a comic, enough for it to be picked up as a cartoon.
So somehow that's not as weird to me, you know?
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