The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

I just got back from seeing The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, the sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and just like the first movie, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

While the movie takes inspiration from Super Mario Galaxy, it pulls from all over the Mario series. There are even appearances from other Nintendo properties, which makes it feel like a full-on celebration. Like the previous movie, it’s a fun love letter to Nintendo fans while still being an enjoyable ride for all ages.

Like I usually do with movie posts, I’ll avoid spoilers. But since he’s been all over the marketing, I think it’s safe to mention Fox McCloud showing up. Seeing Fox and his Arwing from Star Fox in the movie was really fun, and I’m hoping it leads to more Star Fox in general—games, a movie… or, as the Mrs pointed out, toys. I’d absolutely lose my mind if Fox showed up in those little Mario figure displays at the Walmart check out. I check those things every time I’m there.

The movie isn’t a direct adaptation of Super Mario Galaxy, but it's used more of a framing device, similar to how the first movie worked. It’s probably too early for me to decide which one I like more, but right now it feels like a natural continuation. It blends really well with the first movie, and I like that a lot.

Honestly, I’m still riding a high from watching it. As a big Mario fan, this thing is packed with so many Easter eggs and references it’s kind of mind-blowing. I’m still thinking about the Pro Wrestling poster hanging on Mario’s bedroom wall.

I’ve seen some people online already trashing it, but they feel like the same type who went after the first movie—people who just hate popular things to try and seem interesting instead of developing an actual personality.

Me? I loved it.

I made a complete dork of myself. I brought a small Mario figure with me and wore a Mario Kart shirt. The theater had Super Mario candy and themed ICEEs, plus Yoshi popcorn buckets that were already sold out. I grabbed a pack of Feastables Yoshi Eggs—white chocolate with peanut butter—which felt very appropriate with it being Easter. They were actually pretty good.

I don’t really know who MrBeast is, but I like a lot of his products. It honestly feels like he just appeared one day out of nowhere. Who the hell even is he?

The Mrs grabbed one of the ICEEs—Mario Cherry and Princess Peach (peach flavor... wouldn't it be great if it was mango or something?). She went with Mario. I tried a few sips and yeah… it’s just cherry. Still fun, though. I had a Pepsi Zero Sugar... I might be addicted.

On the way out, we noticed the theater had a custom Mario balloon sculpture in the lobby. No idea how we missed it on the way in, but it was a nice extra touch.

Overall, it was just a really fun experience on top of a great movie, all centered around something I’ve loved forever. Pretty awesome.

What should I be?

The opening music to Garfield's Halloween Adventure is burned into my memory they way a channel logo is on your TV. At any random moment, there it is... that flute followed by the screams of Blinky the Clown. I don't know how many times I've seen this special, but it doesn't matter. I'll watch it even more times. It's wonderful. This is another of my annual Halloween posts. It's tradition! The perfect Halloween night as experienced by our favorite lasagna addicted cat. It's all there. Deciding on a costume, carving a pumpkin, trick or treating, and even something scary! Perfection.

Witches Night

Last year I was pretty bummed. Witches Night Out had been bought up by some distributor and disappeared from all my streaming apps. Thankfully, it's now on Tubi, so it's easily watchable again! This is one of my favorite Halloween specials and it's admittedly pretty whacked out. I've posted it here every Halloween... but every season is someone's first. You've got some kids who are disappointed that their costumes didn't scare anyone and they meet a Witch who feels unwanted. Mayhem commences as the grown ups boring Halloween party gets a taste of the spooky shit! One thing that everyone notices is the solid colors the characters are represented in. I think first seeing this on Disney Channel made me make comparisons to Monsters in My Pocket and drew me in. Either way, it's pretty weird... and pretty great.

The Skeleton Dance (1929)

There's nothing more Halloween than this old Disney cartoon about a bunch of skeletons dancing around a graveyard at night. All the classic spooky shit is on full display. Black cats, big spiders, a howling dog, an owl, and of course the skeletons. The ghouls dance around, playing each other as instruments (don't be weird), and having a grave old time. You saw what you saw. All hell breaks loose and the grim reaper gets served before sun rise. Which of course means it's time for the skeletons to rush back to their graves.

originally posted 10/20/20

Daniel Mouse Went Down To Georgia

The Devil and Daniel Mouse was a Halloween special produced by Nelvana and first aired on CBS on October 5th 1978. It's an adaption of the short story 'The Devil and Daniel Webster'. I made a point to be informative at first because it's slightly obscure now. This is the information super highway, right? Daniel and Jan mouse are folk musicians struggling to get by when one night at the peak of their struggles Jan makes a deal with the devil while Daniel is away. She signs her soul away for fame and success and becomes a huge star leaving Daniel behind.

I know, this has never worked out in the past, but to her credit, she doesn't realize it's the devil she's talking too. Somehow. All is going well before she realizes who her new agent is actually when he comes to claim her end of the bargain. She runs away and finds Daniel and begs him to help. Daniel represents her in court and you've probably figured out the rest. It's a retelling of an old story that's been redone a million times. This particular version though is pretty cool. Despite the cute animal characters, the devil and assorted imagery are still pretty scary.

Taking place in the 70's, they change from hippy folk music to hard rock really driving home the thematic change. There's such a change in tone from the folksy innocent Daniel and the newly glam Jan that I can't help to see it as commentary from the production crew. I do suppose it was a pretty stark change from flower power to gritty and glam. Either way it's a pretty unique little cartoon that may not be specifically pumpkin spicy as a Halloween special, but works tonally.

originally posted 9/9/21 

Scared Pinkless

The Pink Panther and his gang are alongside the classic cartoons that I grew up with and still love watching to this day. Timeless and endlessly entertaining, there's always one for the occasion and today is a good time to look at Pink Plasma. In Pink Plasma the panther finding himself in a spooky castle full of monsters and other classic haunted house tropes. This one feels like a Halloween greeting card to me. No jokes this time, let's just watch a great cartoon.

Ichabod's Bogus Journey

Sleepy Hollow has problems. For one, the damn Headless Horseman is constantly terrorizing the town. The other? That whole milk crate thing. Where the hell do they keep getting those anyway? There's a serious problem with a Headless Horseman and these damn fool kids all have broken hips! The local school teacher, Ichabod Crane, is into the paranormal. So he forms a team with Rip Van Winkle and some dog to go confront that damn headless fool. He's a shitty teacher, so the whole milk crate thing doesn't even get a speech in homeroom. Things don't go how you'd expect them to as they face all sorts of monsters in a spooky showdown with a wicked witch. For the record I didn't make any of that up, that's what happens, and yes this is one weird cartoon. Also people keep hurting themselves climbing milk crates. Happy fall y'all.

originally posted 8/27/21

Haunted House (1929)

Man, Disney is #@%#^&$* awesome. One of the biggest companies in the world and they do Halloween better than anyone ever gives them credit. Disney's Halloween Treat is still a favorite of the wife and I (we literally have every single version of it... there's a lot of versions) and we're all over everything Disney and Halloween. We hope to make it out to the Not So Scary Halloween party next year because that just looks super amazing. This old Micky Mouse cartoon has the mouse exploring a most radical haunted house with skeletons that play songs on each other's butts.

originally posted 8/24/18

The Fever Dream Of Sleepy Hollow

Ichabod Crane is a weird guy. He likes to eat food and whoop dat ass. Unfortunately he's not thicker than a toothpick once stuck in a Snicker, so the only ass whom he whoops dat is of his students. Well, the ones who don't have any food for him anyway.

I'm sure you're well versed in the story of Sleepy Hollow, so you know exactly what happens to Ichabod. However, you may not have seen this bizarre animated version from 1972 that doesn't wait until the end to bring forth the scares.

originally posted 8/3/21

Transformers Cyberworld starts July 12th!

This looks fun!

Halfway 2 Halloween~Haunted House (1929)

Man, Disney is #@%#^&$* awesome. One of the biggest companies in the world and they do Halloween better than anyone ever gives them credit. Disney's Halloween Treat is still a favorite of the wife and I (we literally have every single version of it... there's a lot of versions) and we're all over everything Disney and Halloween. We hope to make it out to the Not So Scary Halloween party next year because that just looks super amazing. This old Micky Mouse cartoon has the mouse exploring a most radical haunted house with skeletons that play songs on each others butts.

Grim grinning ghosts indeed.

Originally Posted: 08/24/2018

Orange Beard the Pirate and Odie the Stupid

We love Garfield in my household. From regularly watching his channel on Pluto TV to the army of plushies in our bedroom. So of course his holiday specials are required viewing. Garfield's Halloween Adventure/Garfield in Disguise is one of my favorite Halloween specials that's so good it gets regular viewings all year long! It's Halloween and Garfield wants some candy. Along with Odie (where's Lyman?), he goes trick or treating and gets the scare of his life! It's the ideal Halloween night!

Miss Switch: Endgame

Mordo has captured Amelia and taken back in time and it's up to Miss Switch (who can time travel apparently) and Rupert to save her! Hey... you guys just notice that if you cover the S... Miss Switch's name is... WITCH! I mean, they covered that in the last adventure... but now we're time traveling and I was too busy hating on my prior school teachers.

Miss Switch: Minus One

I've had some bad teachers before, but I don't think any were actually witches. Fortunately, while Miss Switch is a witch, she's a good witch. My teachers were probably demons. You've all seen my terrible grammar, know where I learned that? Them. Speaking of evil witches, Saturna has taken control of the Witches council. Her evil knows no bounds... like fixing a local high school football game and other dastardly deeds. You know, considering my teachers focus on keeping the sports kids on priority, maybe they were witches. Will Miss Switch defeat certain evil by putting children in danger? Yep. Come to think of this, my school experience was just like this. Just without the good witches.

Phyllis Diller Spends Halloween At Disneyland

Disney does Halloween right. They do Halloween specials right. Somebody behind the scenes of The Mouse Factory did drugs wrong. I don't know if Phillis Diller did drugs, but I do know her name is slang for cocaine. Which I'm sure there was a mountain of offstage on this episode.

Spooks and Magic, the Halloween episode of The Mouse Factory features Phyllis Diller as the guest star going absolutely insane with Disney characters. At one point she's breaking into the Haunted Mansion and harassing the ghosts, the next minute she's having a Halloween costume party with Donald Duck. Said costume party doesn't sound bad until she shows them her batshit family slides then runs them off by singing.

The whole thing ends with her forming a witches coven with King Louie, Goofy, and Witch Hazel. The later is sent to Donald Duck's (who just left) house as a set up to the classic Disney 'Trick or Treat' short. In the end, Phyllis uses her evil witch powers to steal Snow Whites identity and... it just ends. That means she's still out there.

Originally Posted 10/02/2020

100% that Witch

Wendy has a problem. Her sisters are a bunch of witches and they scare her. Problem is, Wendy is something of a witch herself. A pretty clumsy witch at that. What's she to do? Go trick or treating and learn how to use her own magic! Nothing like learning a little self worth to realize that you are 100% that witch.

Originally Posted 10/20/2021

Original Robot Animation

The Transformers as a TV show technically lasted 5 seasons. Three full seasons with The Rebirth counting as season 4 and season 5 being repackaged reruns. Of course it feels like cheating to classify a bunch of reruns as a season... but the Generation 2 series was just repackaged reruns. Which admittedly also feels like cheating. However, if you've ever been curious about season 5, you'll of course remember the live action bumper sequences with Optimus Prime and possibly the intro. Considering the show was repackaged reruns, you'd figure they'd just reused existing intros... but no. To the untrained eye, it appears to be all new animation featuring current toys. In fact, however, the new intro is all animation from toy commercials being used.

I like watching older commercials and post enough of them here to make that very well known. So of course I enjoy watching these and taking in all the cool little animated bits. In many cases the quality of the animation is a little better than the cartoon itself or makes me wish they were scenes from unmade episodes. It's hard not to watch little bits like Micromasters running amuck and wish it were from an actual cartoon. The animated Action Masters present a solid case for an Action Master season. Sure, the Takara series exist... but I had no clue about them when I was 11. Thankfully these days it's easy to watch these little spots whenever you want. They wouldn't do it, but a collection of these animated segments would make a great special to air on the Transformers Channel.

Halfway 2 Halloween~Beware of the Castle of Doom

Troll dolls were all the rage in the early 90's. I myself had quite a few and honestly still kinda dig them. The Norfin brand of Trolls even got a few direct to video cartoons! Castle of Doom, their Halloween special, is something interesting. Some good natured trolls find themselves in a haunted castle pursued by Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolfman as trolls. There's a mad scientist too! Look, if I were to tell you there was a Halloween Troll OVA, would you believe me? Good thing I found an upload of the VHS. Ironically, troll dolls are also known as Dam dolls thanks to being created by a dude named Thomas Dam.

originally posted 8/25/2023

Halfway 2 Halloween~Monstro vs. The Wolf Hound

I love watching old Heathcliff cartoons, but it brings to mind a question. Why did they split it up with another group of cats? I wanted to watch Heathcliff. Regardless, the Catillac Cats are a fun group of felines who get into various adventures and are generally likable. What's this got to do with Halloween? They watched a scary movie and have nightmares! Classic Halloween episode plot! Watch the gang act out classic monster tropes in obviously outsourced animation!

originally posted 8/18/2023

Transformers One trailer in space!

At 9am this morning I watched the live Transformers One trailer in space. If you weren't there, it was a camera on a drone that flew up to space with an Autobot symbol. The trip took an hour, in which I took a nap. My alarm went off in time to see space for a few minutes before the camera shifted to a screen that then played the trailer in the video above. I was optimistic about this movie before, but now I'm ecstatic. This looks like a lot of fun and I plan to be there the whole way. I really hope they make toys of the deer.