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thecartoonarchivist · 6 years

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Weekly Spotlight #6

Welcome, Welcome, one and all~!

To the Weekly Spotlight

In honor of this sppppooooooppppyyy season, this week’s spotlight is....

*drumroll* *very pathetic trumpet*

Over The Garden Wall

So, this series isn’t very old. The pilot aired in 2013 and the full mini-series aired in 2014; thus it’s very easy to say that this show is very fresh in my mind.

When this show was first airing, I remember watching part of an episode of it and becoming very intrigued. Initially, I felt no desire to watch it as when they were advertising the special, this originally gave me the vibe of The Misadventures of Flapjack, Chowder, and other rather strange and, at times, grotesque cartoons that never really tickled my fancy. So, I was more than willing to let this series slide off my radar and into some obscure corner of my knowledge never to be heard of or talked about ever again.

But one day, a episode happened to be playing and, for whatever reason, I found myself watching. I knew I was about to leave the house soon so watching some TV show I never really cared all that much about didn’t seem like a bad option at the time. The episode I was watching, I’ve come to learn, was Mad Love. I didn’t actually start from the beginning of the episode, if I remember correctly, but I started near the beginning. Here they were talking about how Quincy Endicott had somehow managed to fall in love with a painting in his labyrinth of a mansion and I ended the episode with the revelation about Beatrice and the heart-to-heart that Wirt and Beatrice had.

It was then that I knew I had to sit down and watch this show from the beginning. I could feel it in my bones that this show had potential and that it would continue on for a long time.

It ended four days later and I felt like I had missed out on something very special. I never realized it was only a mini-series and as a result, I felt that I saw something very beautiful be snuffed out very quickly. I’d have this curiosity and regret linger in the back spaces of my mind for several years. During this time, I’d see videos pop up on YouTube now and again, talking about Over The Garden Wall: analyses on the writing and why the series was so good, cosplay, various musicians playing music from its soundtrack. Over all, I got the impression that the series was something to celebrate and so I added it to my list of series that one day I’d sit down and watch.

But every fall season, Over The Garden Wall would pop up on my radar now and again and I knew that this time I had to sit down and watch it. Luckily, Over The Garden Wall was on Hulu so I snuggled up in my pajamas and fuzzy blanket and spent a little over 2 hours watching this series.

So, why don’t we take a look at its history?

This mini-series was a created by Patrick McHale for Cartoon Network in 2014. Originally, the series was pitched under the title, Tome of the Unknown, in 2006, however the series was much different than the one that was aired. It was originally designed to follow two brothers, Walter and Gregory, as they travel the Land of the In-Between to track down pages from a book of forgotten stories after signing themselves into a contract with a devil named, Old Scratch. However, McHale had difficulties creating a larger story arc for the series and as a result, it was placed on hold for a number of years.

McHale would go on to storyboard for The Misadventures of Flapjack (makes sense why I got that vibe) and co-develop the famous Adventure Time where he would serve as Creative Director and eventually, as a writer. After having more experience underneath his belt, Cartoon Network returned to McHale and asked if he would like to pilot another series. McHale, then, returned to Tome of the Unknown; polished it up; pitched it to the network again; and it would pilot on Cartoon Network in 2013. After having piloted the episode, McHale sat down with the network again where they would decide that instead of an entire, full-blown series, they would simply trim it to a mini-series that would air over 5 days. It was initially envisioned as an 18 chapter (or 18 episode) series but due to budget and time constraints, it was trimmed down to 10 episodes

The interesting thing about this series is that I don’t think I’ve ever had the opportunity to experience another cartoon as dark yet oddly whimsical as this series. In some regards, I would almost like to call it a darker version of Studio Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle but even then, I don’t think that it would actually do this series justice with that sort of comparison. As I was watching this series, I couldn’t help but feel a similar feeling as when I played those one-sentence stories games as a kid. You know which one I’m talking about! Everyone is gathered in a circle, or a campfire in my case, and each person had to say a sentence that would add to the story. You couldn’t change what the previous person said, but you could change the context of how it would affect the story.

For example, if someone said a sentence along the lines of, “Trapped inside the closet, Susie began to cry loudly and alerted the monster of her hiding place.” that doesn’t exactly leave you with a whole lot to work with. Your immediate conclusion is that the monster will find Susie and that she will be eat/maimed/destroyed/etc. However, with a little bit of creativity, you can change the situation to something like this, “Susie, frantically searching for some sort of weapon to defend herself, finds a panel on the back wall of the closet that leads to some place that was not part of the house.” This can lead you to a crazy situation where Susie might find Narnia, or another dimension that is almost exactly like this one, or that there’s a curse on the house because a body in this secret, unmapped room of the house. The situation that you start with won’t be the situation you end with and the only rules are that you can’t undo what was already said and you can only add one sentence. And this is what I felt was going on.

Rampaging gorillas became long-lost loves in animal suits. Graves dug for the main characters ended up being skeletons for pumpkin people. Ferry rides for frog people turned out being a migration for hibernation. The things that you expected would turn on their heads very suddenly and what seemed terrible and fraught with dangers, would end rather cheerfully and full of hope. I felt like it was such an important lesson for young and old alike and I’m very happy this ended up being such a staple theme of the series.

As a sibling myself, I thought that the brother interactions were pretty accurate enough. Wirt likes to blame his brother for all his woes and get rather annoyed with his upbeat attitude; it was funny how much of my younger self I saw in Wirt and there were so many times I had to laugh and cringe at the true renditions of being a Freshman in high school. Greg never dumb, or naive which is something many, many cartoons like to paint younger siblings. I will easy admit that my brother is a whole lot smarter than I was at his age. (Doesn’t make him less of a brat but still!) So having Greg be that rock for Wirt and to help stabilize him when he starts overthinking things and panicking underneath the responsibility of taking care of him was such a refreshing thing to see in cartoons. It felt oddly real.

Some of the shining jewels in this series’s crown is how heartwarming and touching some of the more serious moments of the series is. In the last episode, I found myself fighting back tears despite the fact that I already knew what type of end was coming. (Of course, things were turned on their head as they always were but regardless.) These heart-to-heart discussions and these moments of #realtalk really tugged at my heartstrings and made me feel about ten years younger. But even the whimsical moments were always fun and weird. Did some of the humor fall flat? Yeah, but that’s also because it wasn’t meant for me. Other instances of humor however had me snickering at the realism of such an absurd situation. It was simply a pleasure to watch.

It’s darker tones and moments of horror is such an interesting thing to see in a children’s medium that it almost becomes a rare thing to pull off well. For those of you who grew up with Courage the Cowardly Dog, I’m sure you remember at least a portion of the fear you used to have watching a couple of these episodes. But one of the interesting things about Courage is that there was never any threat of death in the series. Courage’s family might be turned into battle robots, or turned into grotesque creatures, or some unknown horrific happenstance occur, but never really any threat of death. In this series however, that’s the main threat that prevails throughout the course of events. By the end of the series, we know why this is the case, but that still doesn’t make it any less of a gutsy move by its creators. On top of this, it’s so cool and interesting to see all of the little Easter eggs that plant in each episode that point to the twist at the end of the series. Although the series may be a bit too scary for younger kids, you can easily see that this series was intended for as many audiences as they could fit into such a short run.

I think the little things in this series is what shines through the most. The soundtrack was stellar, oh my word!! The voice acting, although at first seemed pretty generic, really fit the tone of the series and breathed life into these quirky characters. Even though the animation itself is pretty cheap (Flash animation isn’t the greatest ya’ll), the backgrounds are stunning to look at and the character designs were very creative and interesting to watch. Each part of this animation played well into the other to the point that the entire piece felt like a wonderful, cohesive whole. Not many cartoons can say that. Not many pieces of art can say that. For that, I salute the entire team of Over The Garden Wall for creating something so wonderful to indulge in. Although part of me wishes that this could have been a full series, I realize that to do so would ruin the good of what I have, so I am content to leave things as they are. However, if anyone has a suggestion for any similar series, send them to my inbox because I will definitely check it out.

For many people, The Nightmare Before Christmas is a Halloween/Christmas tradition. For others, many like to watch Soul Eater for its spooky themes. Still others will watch classic scary movies like Psycho, or The Shining, or Nightmare on Elmstreet for their scares.

For me, this’ll be my new Halloween tradition. The harvest-time aesthetic. The Halloween-like themes. All of it screams everything Halloween was for me growing up and man, did I love enjoy this piece of media.

Overall, this series easily rates a 9 out of 10 on my scale.

It has very few flaws in it (even now I’m having a hard time picking them out) but they’re still there. Perfection is such a hard thing to achieve so I doubt there will ever be a series that reaches a 10/10 on my scale but the fact that it got a 9? It speaks volumes to this series.

I’ll gladly watch this every Halloween. I wouldn’t even mind watching this even more than once a year. I heartily recommend this series to everyone who hasn’t watch it before, even if you don’t like the more bizarre series of Flapjack and Adventure Time. I do adore this series. And it will forever hang in my Hall of Fame for being such a beautiful and fantastic series.

If there are any corrections you’d like to make in regards to this post, please feel free to send me a message with your corrections and I’ll get back to it as soon as I can!

Do you remember a cartoon your friends have never heard of? Got a scene from an animated film that you’re dying to know the name to? Send your questions to The Cartoon Archivist and I’ll see what I’ve got in the vault!

#over the garden wall #otgw #Cartoon network #2010~2015 #miniseries #weekly spotlight #halloween traditions #god I want to watch again already #I literally binged this series yesterday but I still wanna watch it again #i have a problem

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technato · 6 years

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Video Friday: Robot Barber, Untethered iCub, and Aibo’s Best Friend

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos

Image: Robotstart via YouTube

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here’s what we have so far (send us your events!):

U.S. National Robotics Week – April 7-17, 2018 – United States

Xconomy Robo Madness – April 12, 2018 – Bedford, Mass., USA

NASA Swarmathon – April 17-19, 2018 – Kennedy Space Center, Fla., USA

RoboSoft 2018 – April 24-28, 2018 – Livorno, Italy

ICARSC 2018 – April 25-27, 2018 – Torres Vedras, Portugal

NASA Robotic Mining Competition – May 14-18, 2018 – Kennedy Space Center, Fla., USA

ICRA 2018 – May 21-25, 2018 – Brisbane, Australia

RSS 2018 – June 26-30, 2018 – Pittsburgh, Pa., USA

Ubiquitous Robots 2018 – June 27-30, 2018 – Honolulu, Hawaii

MARSS 2018 – July 4-8, 2018 – Nagoya, Japan

Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today’s videos.

Only try this at home on April 1.

You might remember the Flowbee hair cutting vacuum device from commercials back in the late 1980s. We’ve come up with a new concept to disrupt the hair styling market once again, this time through collaborative robots. With Snips by Sawyer barbershops will never be the same.

[ Rethink Robotics ]

Since April 1 was a bit sparse this year, here’s an old favorite:

[ Willow Garage ]

Opticontrol, a robotics company based in the Czech Republic, comes to the rescue of a damsel in distress on Easter:

In case you found some parts of that video a little bit confusing, here’s an explaination from a Czech newspaper:

For many women in the Czech Republic, the Easter season, known as Velikonoce, is not their favorite time. Easter Monday is the national holiday, and traditionally it is a time when women get whipped with a braided rod of willow called a pomlázka. The name comes from pomladit, meaning “to make younger” and how it got tied up with Easter isn’t very clear.

Traditionally, boys in villages go around from door to door on Easter Monday to slap women, even strangers, on the legs, thighs or buttocks with the whip. The victim is supposed to give the boy an egg or some chocolate. The women who are hit are supposed to get a year of health, fertility and beauty. Some older women can tell you that when they were younger they did get a substantial whipping at the hands of neighborhood boys, but now it has become much more symbolic in the places where it is practiced.

Happy Easter!

[ Opticontrol ]

Thanks Jakub!

How does a 2-year old boy Grant Gross, first time egg hunter, fair against Cataglyphis, the award-winning sample return robot? Total dominance!

[ WVU IRL ]

Happy Easter from MekaMon! Remember Easter Egg hunt defeat should always be met with grace!

[ Mekamon ]

This video shows the latest results in iCub whole-body control achieved by the Dynamic Interaction Control lab at the Italian Institute of Technology. In particular, the iCub balancing capabilities have been improved considerably, and the reactive quadratic-programming based controller ensures balance and safe interaction. Also, iCub walking capabilities have been implemented by means of on-line reactive model-predictive-control algorithms.

Really great to see a walking, untethered iCub.

[ IIT ]

And now, this.

[ Robotstart ]

The University Rover Challenge (URC) is the world’s premier robotics competition for college students. Held annually in the desert of southern Utah in the United States, URC challenges student teams to design and build the next generation of Mars rovers that will one day work alongside astronauts exploring the Red Planet. From a record field of 95 teams, URC has announced the 36 teams from 10 countries who have been selected to compete May 31 – June 2 at the Mars Desert Research Station.

[ URC ]

Autonomous sumo is one of my favorite robot combat events, because of how much personality these little bots have. This footage is from the 29th Robot Sumo Challenge, held in Japan.

If you’re just going to watch a little bit, at least make it to the battle at 1:28.

[ Robot Sumo Japan ]

Asimo isn’t quite nimble enough to jump rope itself, but it can help out while some Japanese researchers do it:

Here are a bunch more videos of Asimo, showing various prototypes and commercial footage from throughout the years:

[ Honda Asimo ]

A new video from the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots: “No country would be safe from fully autonomous weapons.”

While this video is not quite as sensationalist as “Slaughterbots,” it’s still surprising to see critics of autonomous weapons turning to scary, violent imagery rather than trying to communicate useful information to help people make informed decisions about this issue. Is fearmongering really necessary?

[ Campaign to Stop Killer Robots ]

What if there was a robot car that enabled blind people to drive? Or a robot designed to put out fires on ships? A robot that plays soccer? Stamps its feet when it’s angry or dances when it’s happy? These are all real projects designed in UCLA’s Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory by Professor Dennis Hong and his intrepid team of undergraduate and graduate students.

“I tell the students to break the robot.”

I love this, although Professor Hong should also tell the students to break the robot on video, and then send it to us, because it’s funny to watch.

[ RoMeLa ]

An update on NASA’s Mars missions, which at this point are all about robots:

[ NASA ]

This RoboThespian test sequence (on 8x speed) is begging for a soundtrack.

[ Engineered Arts ]

Oh look, it’s slightly more robots dancing simultaneously than the last time we saw lots of robots dancing simultaneously.

[ Guiness ]

Marc Raibert gives lots of excellent talks, but we particularly love watching the more technical ones, full of details about how Boston Dynamics does such amazing things. This particular talk was presented as part of MIT’s Artificial General Intelligence course earlier this year, and it’s definitely worth your time, including the Q&A at the end where Marc mentions (among other things) that they’ll be announcing pricing for Spot Mini later this year. And yes, there’s some video that we haven’t seen before—it’s not the greatest quality, but you won’t be disappointed.

Marc also brought along a Spot Mini, which failed to crush an iPhone X, sadly.

[ Boston Dynamics ] via [ MIT 6.S099 ]

Gail Orenstein Gail has been a photographer for 23 years. Her drone work from Iraq, Bangladesh and Nepal has be syndicated around the world. In this webinar presentation, she shares her first-hand insights on balancing the powers and dangers of using small drones in high-risk areas are particularly instructive regardless of whether you work in disaster response, sustainable development, public health, environmental protection or climate change resilience.

[ WeRobotics ]

In this week’s episode of Robots in Depth, Per interviews Linda Thayer from Finnegan, about how patents and IP apply to robotics.

Linda Thayer talks about how to how to apply for, maintain and use patents. Linda tells us about the benefits of getting in touch with a patent attorney early in the innovation process. She then walks us through the process of applying for a patent, key dates and important steps. We also get to hear about defending your patent and international patents.

[ Robots in Depth ]

Video Friday: Robot Barber, Untethered iCub, and Aibo’s Best Friend syndicated from https://jiohowweb.blogspot.com

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