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pixie-mask · 5 years

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So I was planning to make this post to just gush over how much I’ve fallen in love with Milo Murphy’s Law, but then I remembered that I’m not that good at writing coherent thoughts, so I apologize for this rambling mess if anyone reads this.

The Show Itself

So, yeah Milo Murphy’s Law. I remember hearing about this show last year and of course saw that amazing peach clip, but other than that I didn’t look much into it and just let it be.

However on the one time youtube actually gave me a good recommendation and I ended up in a loop of MML clips. (namely clips of Dakota >.>)

In the end I’m so happy to have finally given the show a proper try because it is amazing. The animation is really nice and at various moments there’s these really amazing bits of really fluid animation for certain movements.

Also I tend to be kinda meh to iffy about shows where there’s songs involved especially continuous shows but the songs in MML are so enjoyable. They’re either catchy, funny or both and actually an enjoyable treats to listen to.

However all of this is even more enjoyable due how fantastic and the setting and characters are.

I mean I’ve seen characters or similar things where a character/the protagonist has some sort of “affliction” that causes trouble for them routinely and the show typically focuses on the characters ups and downs, struggles to make friends, their hardship of being accepted and other things. So it was so nice to come into a show where Milo is just a walking chaos magnet but he’s already has friends, is well liked and no one is ostracizing him from the community or from activities. It’s like so nice to see a story where all of that is avoided to focus on what adventures and mishaps the characters can get in and out off.

At the same time it’s nice to see that Murphy’s Law is understood with a healthy dose of realism (as far as cartoon can get) in this show. Milo understands Murphy’s Law can be a problem and doesn’t get offended when people want to be cautious around him and others aren’t all that jumpy around him. I mean they glance around their environment every now and then but they aren’t constantly panicking 24/7.

I also love that that there is a generation of Murphy’s. Like despite the curse like nature of Murphy’s Law the Murphy men have been able to find wives that dearly love them and carry on a family. I constantly think about it whenever I see Brigette and Martin or Milo and Amanda interact.

Speaking of interacting I love these characters. All of them are really enjoyable. Even characters that aren’t really set to be all that pleasant; Mr. Block, Elliot, Savannah, Brick, Bradley; I find to be really enjoyable. I like that Melissa is allowed to be this tough girl without the show trying to go frequently out of its way to mention how she isn’t girly, but then she’s also got fears that aren’t mocked and is a nerd who works on making sure her grades are always good and is just so sure of herself. I like how Zack is this ex-boy band member whose allowed to be on the cowardly side and more sensitive without being criticized and is willing to try to turn situations around and grow through his experiences with Milo.

The rest of the cast is golden as well. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a show where the school faculty was actually really fun to see and not overly stupid, neglectful or constantly angry. It’s nice to see that the school staff has actual personalities and are capable of getting along with their students. The other students are pretty fun to and really help round out the characters. Also the Murphy family is just so sweet. I love that Sara can be so geeky without being mocked, that both parents are successful but also very caring and supportive off their children and that they don’t let Murphy’s Law hinder them in being around one another. I’m not going to go into too much about them (running out of energy) but I have to give alot of props to Amanda’s character. While she’s set up to the be this tightly wound perfectionist its nice to see that she’s able to be silly and have fun and I was so thrilled that they didn’t try to make a long standing story thread about her being a perfectionist and Milo being being basically an embodiment of chaos get in the way of their relationship developing.

Even the more minor characters really fun. I genuinely enjoy Trucker Ted’s whole gag and get a little excited whenever I see a truck on the show. Seriously I regret getting into the show so late, but I’m glad I finally did.

My Favorite Characters

Since I’m running out of energy I’m just going to list my favs and bullet point why I like them.

Vinnie Dakota

His build/design

He’s so short, like what only a foot or so taller than Milo and co

He’s adorably chubby and yet light enough Cavendish (or Cav is just really strong) can easily lift him up or hold him

The fact that he’s just had the hair for his entire life just in varying sizes

And thanks to Cavendish we also know he’s got a decently squishy face apparently.

His Personality

Like he’s played mostly like a typical laid back guy but he’s surprisingly grounded. I seriously did not expect for him to point out Cavendish’s flaws and make some solid arguments given their season 2 predicament. Like how Cavendish needs to stop gunning for trying to save the world and how they can’t risk their jobs because they can’t time travel and fix things like they used to and they have to pay for rent

He’s also genuinely nice. I seriously love how him being nice made his disguise work for him during the second Pistachion take over and how that never came back to blow his cover.

Also despite how things are going he does try to make the best of things.

Give this man his action moment.

I’m serious about that previous statement btw. He made a one liner, slid over the roof of a car, did a dramatic dive and tried to ram an airboat through a steel grate. Just give him his successful moment

He’s clearly being set up to be one of the more action oriented characters and overall he’s pretty good at it

Extra things

The fact that he’s a near bottomless pit when it comes to food

He was utterly adorable as a child

He loves animals and the zoo

And speaking of which I think it’s a shame that we haven’t seen Dakota eating animal crackers in this show

He’s an absolute angel of a best friend

Milo Murphy

His personality

I love that Milo is a sweetheart who understands peoples caution around him at time, but I love that it doesn’t stop with him being nice until he hits the usual dramatic breaking point

It’s nice to see that he can have a healthy level of sarcasm or frustration with both other’s and Murphy’s Law itself

It’s to see a character like this with a nice but also rounded personality instead of the whole nice until a breaking point or nice with no concept on how to be mean and when someone is being mean to them.

Murphy’s Law

Yeah Milo’s past and current events are hilarious. You can never tell how things out of control and as such it brings some fun when we get to see how they resolve themselves or what Milo will use to fix the problem.

Diogee

I don’t have much to say about Diogee.

He’s one of the (or the given my memory) cutest designed dogs that I have ever seen

I thought I would get sick of the “go home” gimmick but I ended up liking it

And his episodes are surprisingly fun

And yeah. Like I said I’m love this show but lack of coherent thoughts and running out of steam has made it difficult for me to continue writing more for this post.

#Milo Murphy's Law #and my poor writing and gushing

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fly-pow-bye · 5 years

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DuckTales 2017 - “The 87 Cent Solution!”

Story by: Francisco Angones, Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Bob Snow

Written by: Bob Snow

Storyboard by: Stephanie Gonzala, Vaughn Tada, Brandon Warren

Directed by: Matthew Humphreys

The last part of the big catch-up!

The episode begins with Huey's concern for Scrooge McDuck's stuffed nose. It took him until now to realize that all of this adventuring must be taking a hard toll on Scrooge's, ahem, advanced age. Of course, Scrooge shoves him away.

Manny the Headless Horse shows up in what seems like another appearance just to prove that, hee hee, it's Scrooge's head on a horse, but there will be a point to this. It's quite clear Scrooge has more important things to attend to than putting away science waste, like taking a dive in the money bin!

After closing the vault, he dives in, swims a little, and realizes that something is horribly wrong. He looks to the left, he looks to the right, and makes a startling announcement to himself: he got robbed!

Anyone can see the joke in this: it doesn't look like he lost a significant amount. Unless this is the first episode of DuckTales 2017 you ever watched, and noticed how shallow the money bin is compared the original. Trust me, it's a different reason, and you should start with a different episode than this one.

After the theme song, we see Zan Owlson trying to give a lecture to Glomgold on how to run his business while doing _n_o _e_laborate _s_chemes _t_oday. She even has a acronym ready for it, and Glomgold desperately tries to find a loophole, only to suggest times that also start with the letter T. While the last episode continued the Louie Inc. plot, though there is a very, very slight nod to that later in the episode, this episode focuses on the bet made in The Ballad of Duke Baloney. I was waiting for that to continue.

Scrooge barges in, accusing Glomgold of doing this wrongdoing. It's a pretty good guess, considering that aforementioned bet, so I can't say he accuses him out of nothing. Glomgold starts gloating that he bested the richest duck in the world, though doesn't understand what exactly he did. Owlson tells Scrooge that he's acting the opposite of sane, as if it was any better than outright saying the antonym, and that doesn't make anything better. This will only be the beginning for Scrooge.

Leading absolutely nowhere, Scrooge decides he needs to amp up the security, only allow authorized employees at the bin, and find out who or what could possibly be behind this. He's going to need his top men!

Sudden cut to three children coming out of an elevator. It is a bit heartwarming to see that he sees his next of kin as "top men". Sure, it may be alluding to child labor, but try not to think too hard about that. Thankfully, he probably meant something different than what that cut suggested.

He walks into Gyro's security room, where Gyro shows off all of the new security features he has installed in the bin, complete with some test footage. This includes Donald Duck running into a force field of Gyro's creation, becoming a duck-blur while Gyro is standing by him. Besides the different victim, another big difference is that this Gyro is just taking notes, with no real shocked expression on his face like the original cartoon's Gyro.

Not the least bit comforted about this, and ignoring Huey's offers of chicken soup, Scrooge wants more. He wants Gizmoduck.

We get Gizmoduck in this episode, in a rare episode where we only see him as Gizmoduck and not his not-so-secret identity. Gizmo is able to give the location of all the villains, at least the ones that would be interested in stealing money. The most interesting suspect brought up is Magica De Spell, whose location is unknown. Her appearance has been teased since the first time they changed the opening to include her, and while it will remain a tease, it is interesting to see her nonetheless.

With all of the security set up, he still can't get over how anyone could just waltz in and steal his money. Speaking of waltzing in, Louie appears just as worried as Scrooge. Louie instantly loses all of his worry when Scrooge tells him the total value that he knew was stolen: the titular 87 cents. Louie and Dewey utterly scoff at this.

But, Scrooge tells them it's not about the money, it's about how the bin was compromised by someone undetectable! If he can't outwit his thieves, he wouldn't be "smarter than the smarties"! He spends a lot of time on this one saying. Smart and the opposite of sane aren't mutually exclusive, but his actions will cross that line eventually.

Huey tries to reason with him with a bit of realism: Scrooge couldn't have possibly known that those coins were stolen from him! They'd have to count every coin in the bin, and that would be crazy!

Much to the annoyance of everyone involved, this leads to the kids having to count every coin in the bin. Dewey even takes the time to insult Huey for this. Thankfully, the kids don't have to do the insurmountable task, because the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook ends up giving them a big distraction. He decides to look into what could make Scrooge so out there with this really minor theft...

...and the page was turned right to this rather large-print section of the symptoms of a fatal disease called Gold Fever. They look at Scrooge, who is walking back and forth in confusion, itching himself, and knowing fully well he's going to outlandish extremes, and Huey makes the one conclusion: he has it.

After realizing this, Huey puts on a surgical mask. This will be used to separate the "gold fever" believers from the skeptics. It's a neat visual trait that gets more apparent throughout the episode, though nothing in this page says it's contagious.

If he does have Gold Fever, it's only going to get worse from here, as Scrooge decides to record a special message for the news, offering a bounty of way more than 87 cents for the 87 cents. I get it, he loves his money so much, he will spend a lot of money to protect it. It's a good reason for Louie to put on his surgical mask. They happened to know when to carry those on them.

Webby's still of the opinion that this isn't too out of character for Scrooge. Yes, she does use that kind of wording!

He gets more and more coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs throughout the episode, even down to commanding Gizmoduck to shoot missiles at the invisible demon that was stealing. Yes, that ends up being his hypothesis. It's not too out of the ordinary for this series. Gizmoduck tries to open his copter, only to find that he can't open it.

This leads to him accidentally shooting missiles at Launchpad's plane, which almost lands on Dewey. It's supposed to be dramatic, but you just kind of feel sorry for everyone.

Thanks to all of this craziness, McDuck Enterprises's stocks start going to low levels, causing his investors to switch sides to certain other companies. Even Roxanne can't believe that Glomgold's company is getting the most of it. You'd think Waddle would have been the better choice; Mark Beaks at least has the courtesy of not being outright evil. Yet. I'm sure something like that would be his slogan if Disney can get it past Google's lawyers.

Scrooge doesn't even think about this news, as he's still staring at all the monitors. Suddenly, GizmoDuck shows up to tell him there's been a breach!

However, this turns out to be an intervention from his increasingly masked "top men." His actions are even harming his reputation, as shown with Dewey also putting on the mask. Apparently, Dewey only cared that his uncle's actions almost led to him getting hurt. Eh, I guess?

Sadly, that didn't work, as Scrooge has gone full invisible demon theorist, complete with the "strings around photos on a board" trope, and he plans to dive right into the gold to truly protect it from him. Even Webby, the honorary sibling that's the closest to him, decides to put on the surgical mask. She doesn't disagree with the demon hypothesis, but she knows that Scrooge needs his sleep. He ain't having it, as we see that he gets the strength of 10 Scrooges when he's kept from his money.

I usually don't want to outright spoil episodes. I spoiled the vast majority of the last episode, but left out the plot twist that may be important to the rest of the series. Unfortunately, because it would kind of weird if I just jump to my final opinion of this episode without talking about my major sticking points with it, I have to talk about two of the biggest twists, one happening right after the other.

Let's start with the first real doozy of the episode: thanks to those stock market investments, Glomgold became the richest duck in the world, with him winning the bet! He can't wait to gloat at his arch-enemy's face about this! A major breaking news shows up, and those plans have to change.

This episode goes for the ultimate amount of shock value and attempted tear jerker, as it turns out that Scrooge has succumbed to gold fever. I'll admit that, while I certainly never believed they would actually go through with this. They don't pull any punches, they say he's dead. They do have one joke, though: Donald runs crying saying that he died so young! Get it, because of his advanced age!

No villain decided to show up to see that their nemesis is truly dead. Right when Gizmoduck takes out his appropriate bagpipes, we see there is one minor exception, though.

Suddenly, Glomgold crashes the funeral, dancing to "All I Do Is Win" by DJ Khaled. No, not a generic rap song that happens to sound like that song, they actually licensed the real DJ Khaled song to play over this scene. The only recent cartoon I can think of that did that is that one episode of Rugrats that managed to get "Vacation" by the Go-Gos to play during the beginning of the episode. Oh, and the Super Mario Bros Super Show. Kind of easy to forget since they removed them from the DVDs.

This is probably the closest this reboot has ever gotten to the infamous literally-can't-even into butt-shaking scene from the other reboot...

...maybe a little too close to that scene! But, I actually don't agree with that for two reasons.

This action fits Glomgold perfectly. He would be the kind of person who would wear shades and a backward cap, invade a high-school, and say, "how you doing, fellow dude-meisters?"

His main goal is to win, win, win, so why not have a song about winning?

Regardless of anyone's opinion of this, nobody in-universe liked this crashing of the funeral...

...especially not Zan Owlson, who shows up to apologize for Glomgold's actions. Eventually, he's pacified with a lollipop. Zan Owlson also explains that this does not mean he won the bet he made in Duke Baloney, because that bet was Glomgold beating Scrooge, not a disease beating him. Glad that was cleared up.

They go back to being a heartfelt tribute to the fallen hero...at least that's what it seems to be when Huey comes up to the podium. Instead of talking about all the great adventures they had, or how he was a great uncle, he talks about how whoever did this must be a mastermind! If this wasn't some big scheme, this would be very inappropriate! "Yeah, he may have been murdered, but wow, that murder method was so impressive!" However, it was not a mastermind who defeated him, but gold fever.

Glomgold finally snaps, and decides to take the credit that was rightfully his! He's even going to explain exactly how he did it, because it would be convenient for the audience, because there is no way anyone would guess what exactly he did.

It just so happened that, along with all of the science junk Manny was carrying, there was a kind of stopwatch that managed to drop to the ground. Glomgold just happened to be in the same room as Scrooge at that point, and he decided to pick it up. Hey, he may not be able to get into the room, but he's got to steal something!

Fiddling around with that stopwatch, he hits a button, and everything becomes blue, not like him, inside and outside. He tries to talk to Owlson, but for some reason, she won't respond back. He yells at her, but still, no response, she just keeps that one expression that looks like she's still talking.

It's like that Twilight Zone episode with the stopwatch, except, thankfully for him, he never breaks it. The big joke is that he's a maroon and didn't get what was actually happening until a year later, the vast majority of that year trying to beat a time-stopped baby at a staring contest.

Finally realizing that watch's power, he caused everything that went wrong in this episode. I think this isn't supposed to be all at the same time, so I shouldn't complain about how he was able to predict, say, GizmoDuck using his head copter. I can also appreciate that he can play the part of Scrooge's money stealing demon. In fact, Glomgold is one of this episode's saving graces.

Unfortunately for Glomgold, a certain someone gets up, and it's not exactly who anyone watching this thinks it is.

Turns out, it was Manny that was playing the role of Dead Scrooge. Got to say, if nothing else, this was a pretty good episode for Manny getting involved beyond a cheap joke. If you actually thought that they were going to kill off one of the most iconic Disney characters...

...you get indirectly called an idiot by Scrooge, who is very much alive and was just in disguise at his own funeral.

But, how did he survive? We do get a few more flashbacks showing that, just before he jumped into the gold, he decided at the last second to get some rest, and, after regaining his sanity, he saw that page slip off of the book. Either everything Scrooge did before that was genuine, or he played an act that involved endangering his kin, spending a ton of money, lowering his stock value, and making himself look like he wasn't "smarter than the smarties" despite wanting to keep that title earlier in the episode. I don't buy the latter, and I don't buy the former. I just don't buy anything.

Outside of Glomgold and Zan Owlson, it appears that everyone in the room was in on it, judging by their expressions. It does makes sense for certain characters; while I don't think he wouldn't be crying, I'm sure Louie wouldn't be able to hide being joyous about any kind of inheritance. Especially after saying a line like "what happened to my, er, your money?" But one question that was on my mind constantly is how this affected the citizens of Duckberg. None of my screenshots show it, but Roxanne Featherly, the newsreporter that announced his death, was there as well. It's possible Scrooge paid for her to make a fake news segment.

Then again, we do see proof that being there doesn't mean they're in on it, as Donald comes back in the room and is shocked that his uncle is still alive! The only other explanation is that Donald Duck is stupid, which would not be very fitting.

Unless that stock price drop was fake too, how was that reversed? Now that Scrooge is now alive, does that mean Glomgold is the richest duck now, or did that not count? Honestly, I kind of stopped thinking at this point, so I might as well get to the end. The rivalry continues, and the episode ends with Mrs. Beakley saying that they could have just asked her to deal with Scrooge's behavior. Oh, and Scrooge gets his 87 cents back. I'm sure that would have kept people up at night if that wasn't resolved.

How does it stack up?

I just couldn't get into this one. It just wasn't funny, and the serious parts were just convoluted. We do get some good Glomgold parts, but that's about it.

The streak of Happy Deweys had to end eventually. People might disagree with me on this one, and that's fine. Maybe this catch-up week has given me DuckTales Fever, symptoms including bad opinions, but the better solution is to just skip this one and just watch that "A Sea Monster Ate My Ice Cream" scene from the original on a loop.

And that's it for the catch-up week. I'm going back to one DuckTales 2017 review a week next week, and it's a big one. See you on Wednesday!

← The Outlaw Scrooge McDuck! 🦆 The Golden Spear! →

#fpb dt 2017 #ducktales 2017 #ducktales #disney #fpb reviews

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sarahjart · 5 years

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PROJECT// NARRATIVE- SIR JOHN SOANE’S MUSEUM- HOGARTH’S ‘A RAKE’S PROGRESS’

‘A Rakes Progress’ is a series of eight sequential narrative paintings, made in 1733 by William Hogarth. It was painted as a follow up to Hogarth’s hugely successful series ‘A Harlots Progress’(1730), which like ‘A Rakes Progress’ featured a story which focused on morals. ‘A Harlots Progress’ was destroyed by a fire in 1755, leaving “A Rakes Progress” as his most famous surviving narrative paintings. The images tell the story of the fictional Tom Rakewell as he inherits a fortune and then proceeds to squander it, and his morals, to vice and destruction.

The paintings were bought my Mrs Soane in 1802 on her husbands behalf. They were hung in the picture room in 1824, where they still are today. I saw the paintings during my visit to Sir John Soane’s museum while I was researching his work for the ‘Narrative’ project.

By seeing them in person, I was struck by the level of detail. Each painting is meticulously and deliberately detailed to add extra meaning to the story. In a time where most of the population were illiterate, narrative images (mostly religious) were one of the main methods of storytelling. This level of detail was very important in helping to immerse the viewer into the story. There is an interesting attention to realism in the setting, while allowing the figures to have a cartoon-like quality in their expression. Because a story is being told without words of cartoon language, expression, posture, body language and character is pivotal if the image is to successfully and accurately communicate the narrative to the viewer. Hogarth is a master of this in his careful composition and characterisation in ‘A Rakes Progress’.

I also noticed that the paintings had suffered a bit through the years- a lot of the details and colours have been disfigured by ageing of the varnish and could benefit from a level of restoration.

1. The Heir

In the first of the series, Tom Rakewell inherits his wealth from his miserable father. He offers to pay off the servant girl on the left in yellow. She weeps over his retracted promise of marriage with the ring in her hand. Around the room there is hidden money being discovered- the upholsterer in the background finds coins falling from the ceiling, and a servant finds silver in the fireplace. In a show of the danger Tom is already in, an inheritance lawyer steals coins from behind his back. Hogarth expertly lights his central characters strongly to show their importance, and allows the viewer to perceive layers of detail gradually.

2. The Levée

This images shows Tom’s rise in society. He holds a morning reception in the manner of a gentleman. He displays his wealth in his fine clothes, new home, and the variety of his attendees- a jockey, a dancer, a gardener, a poet, a tailor, and a musician. On the way behind the figures are Italian ‘old master’ paintings. Hogarth scorned the fashion of acquiring old master works at the expense of current British artists, so their inclusion adds an air of superficiality to his wealth.

3. The Orgy

In the early hours of the morning, Tom is drunk and surrounded by prostitutes in the Rose Tavern, Covent Garden. This is the beginning of his decent into disaster, as he starts to over-indulge in sinful activities. The lady on the left begins to undress ready to perform naked posturing on the silver plate being carried in the background. The two ladies touching him directly do so to distract him while stealing his watch. All the ladies cover their smallpox scars and blemishes from STD infection with black ‘beauty spots’.

4.) The Arrest

Tom has lost his fortune. On the way to the Queens birthday reception, he is nearly arrested for debt. The maid in yellow from the first image intercepts and pays his bail with her small wages. His decent is rapidly increasing in severity- a street orphan steals his cane on the far left, and a lamplighter pours oil on Toms wig from above. Tom’s wet wig and bedraggled appearance is further emphasised by his bewildered posture.

5.) The Marriage

Desperate and soft from being accustomed to a life of luxury- Tom marries an old, one-eyed woman for her fortune. Tom retains his sinful attitude by being more interested in the young maid than his new bride. Two dogs on the right present as an unsavoury parody of the marriage. Behind in the deep background the maid in yellow and her mother are held back at the church doors.

6.) The Gaming House

In a club in Soho, Tom has lost it all. He curses his fate, winless and defeated, after gambling away his second fortune. Smoke curls from behind the panelling in the centre background- and only two people have noticed. Everyone else gambles on, unaware or uncaring of the impending danger.

7.) The Prison

This image is the beginning of the very end for Tom. He is stuck in the Fleet- London’s famous debtor’s prison. He has sunk into despair and is showing signs of impending madness. The beer-boy harasses him for payment while the gaoler demands that his weekly bill is paid. Tom’s wife scolds him for having squandered her fortune. The maid in yellow has visited with her child (right hand side) and has fainted at the scene

8.) The Madhouse

Tom has defended into the depths of madness. He is now in Bethlem Hospital (Bedlam). The inmates around him are at varying levels of insanity- making strange poses or expressions. Bedlam was open to the public back then, and two fashionable young ladies are sightseeing in the background. Their inclusion reminds the viewer just how far Tom has fallen. The ever faithful maid in yellow sits crying at Tom’s side.

#unittow #exhibitions

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