#berkley brethead

[popculturebuffet]

Bloomtrospective Part 1: The Academia Waltz or Birth of an American Stinker

Once upon a time in Austin, Texas, University of Texas student Berkely Breathed, a smartass with a mustache to this very day and a loveable goofus of the highest order, was recently out of a job, thrown out on his ass by the Austin-American Statesman for one of his cartoons pissing people off. It would not be the last time one of his cartoons pissed people off, nor the end of his cartooning career, though it would probably be the last job he was outright fired from.. maybe he might of delivered pizza's, stripped or fought grown men and/or walruses for money.. I don't know what he did in his spare time.

And not long after, he found a new , regular cartooning gig in the daily texan, UT's newspaper and since college papers give far less fucks about people yelling at them than national newspapers, which gave way TOO much of a fuck about people yelling at them over comic strips, Berkely had his first regular gig. and it was this gig that lead to thousands of comic strips, 3 more series later on, plushies, an animated special, a failed pitch at dreamworks, t-shirts, bill watterson getting pissy with him, pearl clutching from concerned elderly people, letters from harper lee and lenoard nemoy, and a small album made by fans. And it all started with a small time semi-doonesbury knockoff starting an obnoxious fratboy.

Welcome one and all, to Bloomtrospective, my retrospective covering all 14 years of bloom county, and every year of it's prequel and sequels. For those not aware bloom county is a comic strip that was started by Brethed in december 1980 and went on to run till mid 89, becoming one of the most influnetal and funniest comic strips of all time, often getting into political and celebrity satire and weird shenanigans. I"m, as you can probably tell by this insane undertaking, a massive fan and more than happy to dive into all 28, yes 28, years worth of content it's creator , Mr. Brethed, put out. And before you ask, yes virginia, that is his real name. But before I can get into bloom county proper, as you can probably guess i'm tackling his college strip, the Academia Waltz.

The reason is simple: I want to track his full evolution as an artist and professinal smartass, and a lot of what would become bloom county is in the primordial ooze of this strip. That's not metaphorical either: around 41 gags, give or take one or two that are similar but not identical, were recycled for Bloom County , with a paticular gag getting recycled three times, a gag i'll get to next time as it's the very first Bloom County strip and frankly deserves a paragraph all it's own. That being said, the strips were hilarious and worth a recycle and frankly not a lot of people probably saw this strip first run, so recyling his best stuff for a wider audience is just good practice. It was done before him with Doonesbury's Gary Tredeau before him and Pearls Before Swine's Stephan Pastis after him recyling their college and web strips for syndication.

And this is far from the only way Waltz follows in Doonesbury's footsteps. For those unaware of the strip, Doonesbury is a political strip started in 1969 that's STILL GOING, albeit sunday's only since the early 2010's, and was one of the most popular and well loved strips in the world at the time Waltz came out. Brethed has out and out admitted that he curbed from the strip for Waltz and early BLoom County and implied, likely sarcastically but given Tredeau is a smartass himselff I can't be entirely sure, that Tredeau sent him obsecntiy filled letters in response. And for the record the two are now on good terms and likely were by mid-bloom county, and it's just as likely the letters were in good fun.  Both series do have a main charcter, though in doonesbury's case one of many, with sunglasses and a surly conservative attitude, and several of waltz side cast resemble doonesbury characters. And Brethed wasn't blind to this, eventually poking fun at himself late into Waltz' run.

But now with that Elephant firmly out of the room, we can move onto the strip itself which starts... with a bunch of formless one off strips about random people before solidly getting into a main cast, as i'll be going character by character here. Though for starters i'll be focusing on two: Steve and Kitzi

Our main schmuck is Steve Dallas, one of the main reasons i'm covering the strip as, along with Opus, the penguin whose the main character of Berke's works as a whole and who we'll get to in an enstalment or two, is one of the few characters Brethed uses in every single strip after this and the only one to have a lead roll in all four.

Steve is an obnoxious, racist, sexist, immature, attempted cheating, asshole of a fratboy. He was based on a friend of Berke's who hasn't come out of the woodwork to beat him senseless yet. The character was intended to be a saterzation of fratboys and toxic masculinity, but sadly as happens often several fratboys saw him as a figure to be looked up to and missed the joke to Brethed's annoyance. And he works well as that and decently as a unsymapthetic protagnist, but I do also see easily why he ended up not being the main character of BLoom County itself and more one of an ensemble with Opus and Milo taking center stage: he's an asshole. It's funner watching his misadventures with someone besides his girlfriend who should've left him LONG ago and who he threatens to molest at one point...

A gag that clearly hasn't agred great, though I concede that put in context of the time it's okay and compared to some shenanigans in 70's and 80's frat comedy, it's tame by comparison. But while not terrible here Steve works at his best with a strong personality to play off of, like most of the bloom county cast, especially as a double act with Opus at times later on. Here while there is a good bit or two with his girlfriend and soriority girl Kitz, like the condom gag used up top. 

There just.. isn't that much to her till the last leg of the strip. For most of it she's just a flat character who wnats more from the relationship and refuses to sleep with Steve for most of the strip because he's Steve. She DOES sleep with her professor, in an arc that is absolutley dreadful by today's standards, as she is very clearly drunk when both she calls him and comes over, and not only doe she sleep with him. But well....

Yup, this has happened before.. and look i'm not saying dark jokes can't be played for laughs, again the above molest gag really isn't that terrible in the context of the time, mostly because steve gets caught and presumibly roughed up immeditly. Here? A teacher takes advantage of his student, has done so with them before, and will again and it's portrayed as cheating rather than Kitzi you know, being raped. It's not great is what i'm saying, though I don't hold present day Brethead acountable for it and I doubt he's all that proud of it. He didn't exactly use this arc to represent the strip any time waltz was reprinted before he let it be fully reperinted and wasn't proud of the strip as a whole, it's just a strip that dosen't hold up well int he Me Too era and the character himself can go have sex with a rake.

Moving on from that nightmare, Kitzi DOES get an arc towards the end where she does change a bit, deciding, out of nowhere really, to change her look up and her major.

This verison does in fact sleep with steve, Ugh, but is also a slightly better foil for him and would later be the basis for a character we'll get to next time, Bobbi Harlow, who'd be a more fully realized verison, but still hasn't changed that much: she's a feminist sure but her role with steve is still the smart woman to the dumb traditional male, a dynamic that's been done to death by now, and even taking it in the context of the time just isn't that funny. She's mostly a cardboard cutout of a woman used to serve as Steve's foil and Bobbi after her would be a bit more fleshed out character wise. But we'll get to her next time.

Now onto another charcter, one who'd be fully imigrated, if breifly to Bloom County.

This is rabies, a dog. He'd be abandoned partway into the next strip because as Berke himself put it, there was no shortage of cartoon dogs, and his personality would largely become that of Milo and the forest animals. However for this strip.. he's great, consiently funny, well drawn and the most entertaining part. Some of the best bits with steve are playing off this old boy and here are some of his highlights.

Not much else to say really, he' a funny, dry sacracstic character and to me feels kinda like the blueprint for the vast majority of berke's characters to come.

Next up is Saigon John, though he’d be called Cutter John in Bloom County. He's one of the only two characters to be important to any of the following strips along with Steve. In Both strips he's a ladies man and vietnam vet, though here he's more of an out and out hippie. He's still remarkably fleshed out for this strip and even gets a full origin story at one point, that while starting goofy with Cutter having turned his rifle into a bong the final two strips are pogniant, and while having a good joke in there... still treat his being paralized in a warzone with the weight it deserves.

A standout in this run and a sign that berke does have a knack for emotinal beats as well as damn good comedy. He was also steve's roomie for a while... nothing really to go into there, just something I felt needed mentioning.

Finally, out of the major characters, we have Val, kitzi's roomate who ironically is never seen with her as frankly Kitzi is basically built to orbit around steve. I do like Val a lot though, an average looking young woman looking for love.. but as seen above usually just ends up trying to surivive an evening with some jerkhole. She's a sympatheic enough character and while she does show up for the finale, she dosen't really get an ending. Get used to that as Berke has a habit of dropping characters abrubtly. Speaking of which it's now time for a character lightning round. Outside of our main 5 here the strip had a  TON of characters that didn't really do much and whose names I struggle to remember. There's Halfoat a crossdressing football player whose a mixed bag.

Their hard to read as it's hard to tell if their transsgender or just wear women's clothing and this being a 20 something berkely brethead a time when those sorta things were given about as much thought as the producers of Cats gave the idea of making the characters not look like a crime against .. well everything really. But at least the people with an issue against them are treated as morons and Halfoat is portrayed as confident and accepted by most of the team except for the douche above. 

Fairing a little better is Threser, another football character before they dropped that gag entirely as it was basically Doonesbury's football strips but with no idea what to actually do with them besides ocasinally throw in an LBGTQ person in there and have the rest of the team be idiots about it. But Thresher is self assurred and enjoyable.

Next we have dancer, a combination of Zonker and Mark Slackmeyer from doonesbury who.. really dosen't have mcuh in the way of personality. He has an accent and that is. The british australian mismash of an accent would come up again in bloom county with LImekiller, a doonesbury ripoff for another day, but otherwise he's basically nothing.

Finally we have the WEIRDEST edition to this cast, Trooper, who appeared for 4 or 3 strips. A very transparent Zonker Harris from Doonesbury knockoff, with the odd as hell twist of "he's an alien". While BLom County would later have aliens and other weirdness from time to time, it worked because it was a hightned version of the real world, something that would be used ocasionally in waltz, but not enough yet at this point to make this any less what the hell. Just a weird footnote. But as you can tell most of these characters are also rans. THere was also a facultiy member warring against medicority, Louis berke's first POC character seen above, some guy who showed up for a while but had no reanl name or personality, Val's mother, Steve's sister and a few one shots but the strip ran through characters pretty quickly. However that does give me the lisecne to bring in the dropped character count!

Dropped Character Count: 9

9 already and with val and Kitzi both being dropped, though kitzi would be resued in a WEIRD way later on in bloom county. that already brings us up to Dropped Character Count: 11

And we've only just begun folks.But to wrap this up, the strip DID have a proper finale: with Berke’s graduation imminent, he quickly wrapped up the story with Steve casually proposing and despite the understandable issues her mother had witht he wedding, steve and kitzi were wed and the strip came to a close. Not a bad ending all things considered and as the next few strips would show, Berke had a way with endings.. for the most part.

Overall though Waltz, despite an awkward start is a decent strip.. dated sure, it was made several decades ago, but not all that bad and enjoyable enough if your a fan of Bloom County, though it's also easy enough to read once out of curosity and then never again, but i'm glad I went through it again for the Cutter John flashback and Rabies alone, and i'm equally as glad it is out there for the curious party to see where BLoom County began.

Naturally you can tell the story dosen't end here... next time Berke goes national and gets syndicated by the Washington Post as he tries to find his footing as a comic stripper and we take our first trip down to Bloom County and meet a wide variety of colorful characters.. that by year two will mostly be gone. Until next time, courage.

#bloom county #berkley brethead #comic strips #comics #the 70's #retrospective #bloomtrospective #the academia waltz #university of texas #steve dallas #rabies #dogs #penguins

[popculturebuffet]

Opus N Bill in A Wish For Wings That Work 30th Anniversary Review! (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Ho ho ho all you happy people! And today we have something a bit special and a bit indulgent and a bit courtsey of my good friend kev. See originally this review was going to be cut, as while I was super excited to do it my Scott Pilgrim review put me massively behind schedule, to the point I”ll likely have to reschedule my venture bros season 1 review. I didn’t MIND it doing so as it finishes that retrospective after too long, but point is I put my clients work ahead of me, so I was willing to cancel this so I could get Kev’s review of Operation: NAUGHTY done. Instead Kev switched to comissoning this so I could still do it as an early christmas present. What a guy, makes you cry , und I did. Don’t worry for anyone wanting to see the KND vs Elvish Versions of the X-Men, i’ll make a spot for it next year. But for this year I couldn’t resisit celebrating the 30th anniversary of one of the most underrated christmas specials out there, the ONLY time one of my faviorite comic strip universes has hit the screen, a special even it’s own creator isn’t happy about but I find a charming if flawed adaptation. 

As for what it’s adapting...

So for those, including Kev himself, less familiar with america’s faviorite pengy and my desk assistant

We have to talk about one man with the mustache and wit of a greek god and a name that yes is very much 100% real: Berkley Brethead. Berkley is a Comic Striper. I’d say cartoonist but well...

He’s been working since the late 70′s when he did his first strip the Academia Waltz, a strip that’s... well Berke fought for YEARS to keep all but a select handful of strips released, let’s leave it at that shall we? It’s best jokes, and characters in slimy fratboy misgonyst ass Steve Dallas and snarky star trek loving vietnam vet and ladies man Cutter John, would be recycled for Bloom County, his syndicated strip set in a rural town’s bording house starring local kid Milo Bloom, who evolved from spacy dreamer to sardonic sometimes assholish voice of reason and muckracking reporter

As you can tell by the samples so far the strip is objectively hilaroius and easily both my faviorite comic strip ever (narrowly inching out Calvin and HObbes and Something Positive), and one of my faviorite comics period. It has wit, heart and a biting satirical bent for both politics and pop culture. While some jokes haven’t aged well others are flat out timeless as you can see. 

But early on it was missing something and Berke knew it: while the early strips aren’t AS bad as he thinks, it took years to convince him to make a complete edition of the strip for this reason, they do take a while to find their footing, slowly adding key castmembers as they go: in addition to steve and cutter being added (with steve now a completely scummy lawyer who regularly defends blatant murderers) to the new strip, we also got Binkley, a nervous kid who deals with a dad who at first is an agressive jock determined to change his son and later, and much more tolerably, a put upon guy dealing with his son waking him up every night with celebrity gossip. But the cast still lacked a center, a heart.. a heart that was found one day in the oddest way possible...

Soon though Binkley accepted his new best friend, and his dad accepted you can’t trade a child for a subraru, you twit. 

As you can see the man himself say, Berke could tell he had something and soon Opus went from a throwaway gag to the strips star, becoming the strip’s heart. A chap whose a bit neruoti and naive, but utterly sweet relatable, and utterly himself.  Here’s some examples. 

There’s more but I was paid to review a tv special not give you a best of a hefty penguin. Opus also picked up a best friend in Binkley’s cat Bill, who was created as a parody of the garfield merchandising boom, creating a character so unfathmobly ugly no one would want merch of him.... you can probably see where this went

Bill quickly became a fan faviorite because he was so ugly and Berke ran with it, giving this ugly cat who only commuincated in “Ack’s” and “thbbts” a rapidly expanding profile: he was a former movie star, crashed his car and died exactly like james dean, came back from life via cloning, ran for president four times (With Opus wrangled into being his reluctant VP every time), picked up a coke habit, joined the ranjeesh cult, went to betty ford, had a comeback after getting a massive inhereteance from a presumed dead Opus, dated Regan’s diplomat Jean Kirkpatrick, used her to get secrets for the russians, was nearly executed for treasons, was traded to the russians in a prisoner exchange for cutter john, got kicked out of Russia after causing Chernobyl, became a headbanging superstar, shifted to socialy concious rock, got caught in a scandal doing something wholsome with a nun, became a televanglist whose anti-penguin crusade lead to opus becoming homeless, got his brain replaced with Donald Trumps, somehow got over that and returned, dated Bill clinton’s cat sox, and finally lead a mayoral campaign to get teens to pull their pants up after having been the cause of Bird Flu. Oh and he’s the long lost son of garfield, just in case you thought this coudln’t get MORE silly. 

Jeez no wonder Arlene dumped him for a while and refused to be in the cartoon. 

So as you can imagine these two became the lynch pins of bloom county and the strip prospered till 1989. Berke was getting burnt out with the daily deadline grind, and had simply waited it out long enough to get full control of his characters. Keep in mind this was unheared of: much like with the big two of superhero comics if you make a comic strip for a major syndicate, they usually own the characters and concept fully. It’s likely why the big web comics boom of the 2000′s happened: younger cartoonists like Scott Kurtz, Holkins and Kraulki, Randy Miholland and many, many more found they could do whatever they wanted creatively and get paid decently for it by striking out on their own.  But once Berke owned them, he got out of doing daily strips. He TRIED doing something completely diffrent with his next strip Outland, which Starrred Ronald Anne, a young girl from the “wrong side of the tracks” who’d been a recurring character in bloom county’s final years who ended up in a fantasy land with Tim W Forty, a purple weasel in a bowler and Mortimer Mouse

 No not that one but the characters were incredibly similar, with Morty here also being a cynical, slightly horny mouse. But after about a month eventually Berke gave in.. and brought back an old friend...

Yup while he fully intended to move on... he just couldn’t and outland soon became bloom county just with a new cast, with Tim soon gone, mortimer gone not long after him and a few ringers from bloom county returning to fill out the cast again: Oliver Wendell Jones, a prominent cast member who loves to pal around computers and use them to make goverment and fincial institutions go all higgeldy pigeledy and Milquetoast, a sarcastic asshole of a cockroach who frequently heckled opus and whispered things into people’s ears to make them do stuff. Eventually berke gave up entirely and edged Ronald-Anne out in favor of bringing binkley and steve back before quitting all together coming back for two runs: Opus which due to the newspaper industry geting worse and more censor happy didn’t last long and a revivial of Bloom county that continues on and off to this very day, most recently having a neat arc where Opus tries to find a now adult calvin to reunite him with Hobbes. 

So why go into all of this? Well partly so you see how much I love these strips going in.. and partly because this weird and wonderful history effects the special. See the special was made in 91... putting us square into outland territory and where I feel part of the special’s shakiness comes from: The only fleshed out characters he could legally used (Disney unsuprisingly wasn’t happy about having Mickey’s brother who had a beef with Micheal Eisner who eisner tried to have personally killed as a main character) were Opus, Bill, Ronald-Anne and Milquetoast, weirdly not using any of the bloom county cast. Maybe he was tired of them, I dunno, he’d later backtrack on that but at the time he just stuck with who he had and it effects the special as you see. It’d also effect his enjoyment as while production went smooth, Berke ended up unsatisified with it for a number of reasons, from feeling his work really didn’t transfer to screen, to having wanted VA legend and voice of Winnie the Pooh Sterling Holloway to voice opus. That last part I don’t agree with as A), Holloway was retired and Jim Cummings had been in the roll for some time wasn’t contacted.. despite having directly worked with the guy who did play opus which brings me to 2) Michael Bell, who plays Opus here, does a WONDERFUL job. You’d know him as Chazz Finster, Drew Pickles and Quackerjack. 

That said was Berke right as a whole? Was he rilla? Is it all just killer diller? Find out under the cut for my full review!

We open amazingly, with a  beautiful pan in shot to some gorgeous music as Opus writes his letter to santa. He explains what he wants, what his wish is: for wings that work. As he knows.. he dosen’t exactly have the most functional ones.

And it’s here where Bell really shines as opus, combining his innocence with a bit of refrential humor, nailing the character. It’s why I feel Berke was hard on him: this is a hard character to get the tone down for, one whose innocent, but can also make asides about the state of the world, one whose kind but also prone to have outbursts. The last part Bell has issues with, but the rest of it he gets beautifully, his Chaz voice perfectly fitting our flightless friend. If there’s one true standout of the special, it’s Bell and I hope if we’re ever lucky enough to get a full length opus movie at some point, we can get someone like Bell or see if he’ll take up the sword again. He’s still kicking and voiced Quackerjack last year for ducktales, so it’s not like he’s gone.. despite what the Disney+ reboot not using him might have you belivie. 

Opus recounts the previous day and thus we segue into the plot proper as Opus begins his daily routine, flapping around while trying to “fly fly fly” as he says, wanting to soar. He passes Bill, who lives in a garbage can.  Good thing he got out of it the next guy to go near it wasn’t exactly friendly. 

So while we get this fun opening of Opus darting around like a goober in the snow while Bill follows him, to his displeasure as by this point in things Opus was more annoyed with his friends existance than anything versus his steadfast loyalty early on. Then again given Bill you know, called his existance immoral and got him ran out of town by religious jackholes aka the entire cast minus Binkley.

So I can’t really blame Opus for not wanting to be buddy buddy with the guy. 

Jokes aside this is easily the weakest bit of the special. Opus seems to shun Bill for no given reason. All bill does is follow him around, opus hates him for existing and I just scratch my head. That’s it. In the comics again there’s a LONG history of bill being a bit nuts and leaving Opus in the learch. Besides the above he blew Opus’ dough, took all the ad money from their rock band, caused said band’s breakup, and once got Opus engangled as a communist sympathizer despite Opus having had nothing to do with Bill’s dealings with Russia.  Here he’s just snappy at a braindead cat he found who just wants a buddy. It makes opus come off like a bit of a dick when he should be utterly sympathetic. 

Thankfully those moments are few and far between and after failing to soar again, Opus heads to his support group, being mocked and stalked by some ducks who are original creations to this special, played by Joe Alasky, also of rugrats shockingly enough, using his daffy voice. They aren’t bad though, mocking our hero for his efforts and being perfectly build up bullies and good stand ins for the other animals who tended to mock opus Pontory, Hodgepodge and Milquetoast. 

Whose not a good stand in is Truffles who is claming to be a rhino yet shames Opus for his own desires to break his species. I’ts not funny, he has no purpose here, I don’t get why MIlquetoast didn’t play the part since the guy’s reduced to a cameo. Moving on. 

So we get the meeting which is easily the standout part of the special, and adapted almost beat for beat from one of the Outland strips:

The characters , dialouge and final bit are all taken from the strip. The only changes are Georges last two bits of dialouge are changed and instead of Opus proctering the meeting, he participates in it while Ronald Anne does. She does a good job as tiny therapist and it’s a decent change. Also yes that last bit has not aged well at all and I question using Milquetoast ONLY for that roll. IN the comic he was a foil to opus, here.. he’s a joke aged like moldy cheese. Why. Also because he happened to be around during one of the days of recording he’s voiced by academy award winner Dustin Hoffman

But again the scene’s a standout, with Alyson, voiced by Tress Macneile, being fun and enjoyable. The real star is George. In the comic he’s just pretty sad,.. but in the special he’s a special he’s a wonderfully morose ham, who shouts about the ALBATROSSS gloriously. And he too was played by a big name, the late great Robin Williams, who was working with Amblin for Hook and thus gladly agreed. And he brought his best to it, just making every bit if dialouge from George pop, making the tragedy of his life into pure comedy, even wanting Alyson to suck up an albatross> This scene sparkles with Bretheads offbeat style and feels the closest to his work out of the special. I’ts not a bad special overall but the smaller scale of the scene means he can focus the way he does in a strip and it works beauitfully. 

Opus decides to say no no no, to status quooooo and goes to bob’s military hardware and balloons, great background sign gag, to become an “aeronautical vigilante” trying to fly with BALLONS. Hit it!

Sadly Motherfucking ballons don’t help him soar and he ends up plowing over the recurring chorus of a bunch of random weirdly drawn people and Elvis. No not a guy who looks like elvis, wether that was the intent or not. Elvis is canocially alive in Bloom County

I got nothing more to add I just love this very weird fucking strip. 

So Opus snaps at bill and goes home, ending up dreaming of a black and white christmas.. specifically the 1937 film about a plane crash, Lost Horizon. It’s about a group of people trying to escape china who end up in Shangri-La. A And you thought the elvis thing was silly. 

Opus plays the pilot and fails to get them to land as...

And wakes up to his door being pounded on. For once no phrasing. It’s a christmas miracle. The ducks barge in and drag Opus to a crash site.. for Santa. Santa ended up in the icy water, he needs help... and Opus just happens to be equipped. It’s a nice, heartwarming twist: Opus wished so long to fly.. that he forgot what he could do. The narrative dosen’t QUITE wrap around to it the way it should, they never thought to play up his ablility to swim in frosty waters or his natural talents for some reason.... but it’s so charming, and the site of Opus hauling that sled to shore so awesome, that it just.. works. 

So we get a truly touching moment as Santa not only thanks opus, but gives him his hat, replacing Opus lost flying hat he’s had for half the special. It’s truly endearing.

And in the end, Opus gets what he wanted most.. simply by having been himself. The ducks change their ways and apologize for being dicks.. and thus offer Opus a flight. 

So we get our just as heartwarming ending: Opus soaring in the air.. and finding out Bill was the one who recommended him to save santa, offering bill to follow along as “this is for you too billy boy!”. So he flies, getting his wish.. but having already gotten the self respect he thought he’d get with it and giving us a merry christmas “but I simply must fly.” Truly great ending. 

Final Thoughts; 

This special is pretty good. It has it’s flaws: the emotoinal payoffs needed more work to get there. In contrast the more emotoinal moments in both charlie brown and garfields specials felt earned, having a longer road there. Here Opus is needed because the plot does and Bill is thanked because he did something nice with not enough of an apology. The fact the supporting cast is kinda paired down dosen’t help, giving Opus journey less weight as the characters have less chemistry with him than his old friends did. 

So why do I still love this thing? Well for once i’ts to date the ONLY adaptation of something I Love. And keep in mind being the only one does not mean i’ll love it. The tim story ff films are a mess and I still to this day refuse to watch Fan4stic.  Same with Dragon Ball Evolution which is the only adaptation of dragon ball that’s not a direct 1:1 from the manga or anime.. but is also Dragon Ball Evolution. MIght review those some days but the point is I don’t treasure them or WANT them. 

In contrast this film.. I watch every christmas right alongside garfiled and good old charlie brown. While it’s flawed... having flaws is part of the franchise as a whole. The strips have dated humor that’s pretty bad or offesnvie here and there. No one’s perfect. And that’s the message of this film: no one’s perfect, but what makes you you matters. And it’s why I can forgive this films faults: it’s not perfect.. but it still feels like opus, still has the utterly touching moments most good christmas specials need, and is still magic to watch every time. every time I notice new thigns and new neat quirks. So while it’s not perfect.. it’s special. 

If you want ot partake yourself, check it out on youtube there’s multiple copies and I hope this gets a blu ray release at some point (though I own the dvd one at least). For now i’m going to take off eh, thanks for reading. 

#a wish for wings that work #opus #bloom county #berkley breathed #bill the cat #opus the penguin #outland #christmas specials #christmas #holiday specials #holiday #cat #penguin #winter #ronald-anne #milquetoast #robin williams

[popculturebuffet]

Restocking the Buffet: Late February 2021

Hello all you happy people. This is just a  mildy quick post to talk about a few things, similar to Linkara’s state of the wall posts he does every couple of months, talking about a few recent bits of news i’ve wanted to get off my chest, next month’s schedule, upcoming plans now I have a better idea where things are at that sort of thing. If you don’t know me I do longform reviews of comics, animation and other fine stuff. 

Assorted Thoughts on Recent News: The Boondocks Reboot Canceled: Let’s get to the bad news first as in an otherwise great week, some bits stuck out like a sore thumb. This is the first:  Cedric Yarburough revealed the Boondocks reboot is no longer happening , it was canceled for reasons that haven’t been properly revealed yet leaving me incredibly annoyed. For one thing as a fan of comic strips, the original show to me is one of the gold standards for both comic strip adaptations and adaptations period, taking what worked from the comic, changing things up to work for a new medium and adding tons of fun touches all it’s own. So a reboot to it tackling modern issues especially in a post george floyd post trump era was perfect.  The other reason is just as simple as it is baffling: HBO Max has exactly ONE adult cartoon worth a damn with all others they’ve tried being throughly mocked and shoved back into the stygian depths they came from. So WHY they’d cancel the one promsing show they have in reserve?

Just throughly frustrating and disapointing.

Bloom County Picked up For a TV Series!: Thankfully not one day later the exact opposite happened as something I hoped for but had little hope would happen happened: Bloom County was picked up for a tv series, with creator Berkley Brethead cowriting and producing it. For those unaware of this strip, Bloom County is a satrical comic strip from the 80′s that was revivied in 2015 and follows loveable optimist and goofus Opus, braindead cat who gets into a lot of weird shit Bill, and collapsed lawyer and sexual harasser Steve Dallas among many others. It’s a national treasure as well as the source of several of my reactoin images and I even have an Opus phone on my desk my friend emma gave me. So yeah this is excting and likely to happen given fox usually at least TRIES a show for a season.. and likely two given how animation is. So even if the show sadly dosen’t take off like I hope it will and introduce dozens more to this wonderful world, i’ll at least get two great seasons of television. I have high hopes for this and good or bad, i’ll defintely be covering this one when it comes out.. whenever that is. 

Sonic The Hedgehog 3.. and Knuckles: Smaller one here but ahead of Sonic 2′s release in april, Paramount annoucned both a knuckles spinoff tv show and a third season HELL YEAH. I mostly bring this up because of something we’ll get to soon. 

The Casagrandes Canceled: Yup. Just.. yup. While I haven’t watched the show in a while, it’s still disapointing this is happening, though not suprising. Both this show and the parent seem to be in a rut where not much changes. With other Slice of LIfe shows like Craig of the Creek and Big City Greens FEELING like they have progress while still keeping most of the same status quo , Loud House feels stuck DESPITE having moved everyone forward a grade. Hopefully it’ll get out of this rut and give the casagrandes characters, especailly Syd, another shot. 

Comixlology Revamp: Comixlogy is a digital comics service, one I use frequently as it’s cheaper, usually better and just all around rocked... but this week it pivoted to a new model, using amazon’s services and reader and it.. is not great. There are a LOT of bugs to be worked out let’s be real here and while i’m far from the only one complaning abou tit, both Patton Oswalt and Gail Simone have chimed in I hope Amazon gets their heads out of their asses and fixes this SOON. 

Okay now that’s out of the way

Blog Announcements:

Schedule:

This is as always freely avaliable under the schedule tabs. Schedule may change based on need, real life stuff coming up that sorta thing. 

March:  March of the Penguins! 2/27: Watchmen: The Judge of All Earth The Great North: Sexi Moose Adventure The Legend of Vox Machina Season 1 Monthly Muppets: The Great Muppet Caper 3/6: Batman: Surf’s Up, Joker Down Tomtrospective: Curse of the Blood Moon and Junkin Janna Penguin’s Behind Bars This Duckburg Life 3/13 Danny Phantom Poll 2 Amphibia: Cane Crazy/Flood Sweat and Tears/Hop Luck/Stakeout Surf’s Up Tomtrospective: A Boy and His DCXCE, Doop Doop and Sad Teen Hotline 3/20 Amphibia and Owl House: Escape to Amphibia/Follies at the Coven Day Parade Life and Times Finale Special Emma Patreon Surf’s Up 2: Wavemania 3/27 Amphibia and Owl House: Commander Anne/Sprivy/Elswhere and Elsewhen Bloom County: Headbanging and Marriage The Venture Bros Season 4 Watchmen (Film) April: Sonic Month! 4/3 Amphibia and Owl House Sonic Underground: Knuckles Quadrilogy Watchmen: Watchmaker Ducktales and Venture Bros Comparison (2nd Year Duckiversary) 4/10 Amphibia and Owl House Sonic Patreon Amphibia: The Domino Effect/Taking Charge/Anne Theft Auto/Breakout Star Monthly Muppets: Muppets Treasure Island 4/17 Amphiba and Owl House VeggieTales: An Easter Carol Sonic Poll Sonic Universe: The Tails Adventure 4/24 Amphibia And The Owl House Archie’s Sonic The Hedgehog: The Original Freedom Fighters Sonic The Hedgehog: The Movie (OVA) The Venture Bros Season 5

So a few things to talk about form these in detail

Theme Months:

Yes i’m doing TWO theme months in a row. This is Kev’s baby through and through with me only pitching in a Bloom County review on my own time because how can I celebrate penguins and not do this. So we have a look at the failed pilot penguins behind bars, which looks to be heavily intreting, a look at opus’ engagment and metal career, and a mini retrospective on the two film series Surf’s Up, one an underated fun surfing film.. the other a weird sequel i’ve never seen that has the wwe slapped on it and Vince Mccmahon’s weird mastabtory fantasies. So.. about right for a WWE product

The second is one i’ve had in the works for a while and with the film still set to come out and Emma , one of my patrons, one of my best friends and one of my main contributors, being a sonic fan, it was easy enough to collaberate for this idea. 

To celebrate the sequel to the awesome first Sonic film, we have SONIC MONTH. A whole month dedicated to the blue blur with, like march of the penguins, about a review a week covering all sorts of sonic shenanigans: We have the four knuckles episodes from underground, his ONLY apperance in the DiC cartoons no less, a tbd patroen review, the tails adventure arc from archie where Bunnie and Antoine’s honeymoon an 8 year old took them on goes pearshaped thanks to a game adaptatoin decades after it shoudl’ve happened, a patreon poll choosing from the best of the criminally underated uk comic, a look at the one sonic comic kev ever owned and it’s second part, and finally capping it off with the sonic ova! Strange isn’t it?

The End of Old Projects and the Start of New Ones!: 

March is also, as you can see a lot of house cleaning as I finish up both the tom retrospective and the life and times retrospective (part 1 of it anyway). After all the heavy delays I’ve sped things up slightly but you’ll get the same quality from these final reviews. I’m also FINALLY getting to my long put off due to delays review of an extremley goofy movie for my second patreon stretch goal. 

So after Sonic Month and a tighter schedule in may, what’s next.  Well for starters i’ll be starting looks at every season 1 episode of Amphibia starting tommorow thanks to Tyler Spickel, one of my patreons who got me to another goal! As a reminder my patreon goals are set on how many people join, so even just one dollar a month hits them and I have a goal set up EVERY time someone does. So your buck not only nets you a free review for joining and a seat at the table when I do my polls, my patreons each get to pick one of the choices you all vote from, but also gets me to do various projects. The next one up is episode by episode reviews of Owl House season 1, since like amphibia I started covering it reguarly at season 2. So if you want to give a hoot and see me do the same, join my patreon

MY PATREON IS HERE!

I’ll also FINALLY be starting my long delayed Helluva Boss retrospective in May! I’ve been wanting to cover the show for some time but I priortizied getting everything else finished. 

I’m also covering some of Justice League International in May for it’s anniversary , and if reception is positive enough I may cover it in full. I also WILl do the more than meets the eye retrospective at some point... I just started it at the worst time possible, both as I had to cut back on reviews and as I had a ton of other stuff already going. I will get back to it, it’s still one of my faviorite comics ever and I still love it, the momentum’s simply died down and i’d rather not force something this important. 

For my Danny Phantom followers, I’ll finally be starting my next leg of it’s story arcs with my Jazz arc, covering Jazz finding out his idnetity, her other spotlight episode in season one 13, the two youngblood episodes, ultimate enemy and then secret weapons, along with masters of all time , the last plot relevant episode before season 3, then probably season 3 as a whole. We’ll see

Finally i’ll be covering tuca and bertie this summer  in full season reviews after the venture bros retrospective wraps up, for now, in june. It was one of my stretch goals and will slot in nicely as the new show I binge throughout the month and review a tthe end, something i’m keeping as a tradition. After that I’m considering either steven universe or x-men 95. You guys let me know which you’d prefer. As for anything else

I’m keeping things open for now, thinking of things i’ve wanted to review, things I hate I want to tear apart, that sorta stuff. I’m defintely going to do something x-men related as my rouge and gambit wedding review was a decent hit and every x-centric thing i’ve done has been a success, as well as how much I love it i’m just not sure what it’ll be as I have a lot of choices. Not only that there’s a daria arc i’ve wnated to do for some time but given it stretches over pretty much all of season 4 i’ve considered just doing season by season reviews of Daria at some point instead. I’ve also had character focus retrospectives for Flame Princess from Adventure time and CJ from regular show in my head so let me know. What characters would you like me to take  alook at? What arcs from shows? what shows as a whole? Let me know what you guys would want to see and if it matches up with ideas i’ve had. What comics do you like? 

Finally we have one last update to take care of

Regular Coverage:

Owl House and Amphibia are back next month! now since i’ve covered seasons 2 and 3 respectively as they’ve come out, some of you likely wonder how i’l lhandle this. As you can see from the schedule i’m pairing them up! I’ll still give these new episodes my best, but i’ll be doing both shows in one article, something I dont think i’ll get many objections to since these two fanbases have a lot of overlap. This also may be the LAST regular coverage I do. I  MIGHT do moon girl and devil dinosaw, but that depends on both what you guys would think of me doing that and if I end up liking the show enough.

That said seasonal regular coverage is getting a new addition. While we wait on Invincible and Close Enough to return, say hello to Legend of Vox Machina! Yes baby, coming at the start of march i’m covering season 1. I was blown away by this series despite not having seen critical role (yet), so you bet your ass i’m doing it , especailly now I have a nifty new format for doing full season reviews thanks to my venture bros retrospective that I like a lot more. LIke those in addition to going ham on the character arcs and what not, i’ll also be breaking down the episodes capsule style with runners, some you’ll regonize form venture bros, some exclusive to this series. 

So that’s all. join me for all this fun stuff and thanks for reading. 

#sonic the hedgehog #amphibia #the owl house #the legend of vox machina #danny phantom