The Old School Otaku Lounge

Oh, I have lots of classic animation as well: Betty Boop, Popeye, Superman, Warner Bros. (have most of the collections now), Disney shorts, Walter Lantz, as well as TV animation: Jay Ward (Rocky and Bullwinkle), Roger Ramjet, Hanna Barbera (Space Ghost, Shazzan, Frankenstein Jr., The Impossibles, etc.), Rankin Bass, etc. I still collect a lot of animation including the latest stuff like Ben 10. There is a site I was on yesterday with commentary from a fellow working on the current show who was answering a lot of questions on the ongoing and upcoming episodes. Lets see if I can find it again...

Lots of inane banter from kids but some useful info in here:

http://new.spring.me/#!/user/DerrickJWy ... /responses

Dr. Katz was genius. My friend was a huge Dr. Katz fan. He gave me season 1 on DVD once season 2 was only available as a combination with season 1. Not sure why they did that. I think I saw one episode of Home Movies and I would agree that it was the spiritual successor to Dr. Katz. It was the same guy and animation studio, right? Unfortunately, I only ever caught one episode of that show.

Ben wrote: Coach McGuirk is one of my favorite all time animated characters

To this day, we STILL love the bit where Coach McGuirk goes off on a "man" camping trip because (in his words) "I was promised there would be beer here, and there was, but now its gone, so I'm leaving". Now let us all go cry-walk together.

LOVED Home Movies. I love the improv feel of the dialog, how everybody talks over everybody else, Coach McGuirk and the knives, the Renaissance Faire episode, the Halloween episode, Star Boy And/Is The Captain Of The Universe, etc. etc. A really entertaining show. I want those kids to make a cameo in Bob's Burgers SO BADLY.

greg wrote:Dr. Katz was genius. My friend was a huge Dr. Katz fan. He gave me season 1 on DVD once season 2 was only available as a combination with season 1. Not sure why they did that. I think I saw one episode of Home Movies and I would agree that it was the spiritual successor to Dr. Katz. It was the same guy and animation studio, right? Unfortunately, I only ever caught one episode of that show.

Home Movies was done by Loren Bouchard (who worked on Dr. Katz and later went on to Bob's Burgers) and Tom Snyder (who also produced Dr. Katz aside from being a late night host), and featured H. Jon Benjamin (voice of Ben in Dr. Katz) and Ron Lynch (who was one of the most frequent comedian guests). There were other regulars who returned, like Emo Phillips and Jonathan Katz in a reduced role as Melissa's dad. What happened was that Katz was dealing with multiple sclerosis, and couldn't handle a full series anymore. So, the production team of Dr. Katz did a new show with Paula Poundstone originally being the star, and Brendan Small in a secondary role. Then there was a falling out with Poundstone, and Brendan Small and H. Jon Benjamin took center stage, which produced the Home Movies we (thankfully) got instead.

Also, what happened with Dr. Katz is that it was originally going to be released in season sets, but those were cancelled mid-release and the entire series was put out in one boxset. So the only way to own the series is the boxset, those season sets were never finished and have no content that isn't in the boxset, anyway.

So nobody else watched Ernest and Celestine? It was a pretty amazing piece of French animation. Very story-book. The story was pretty cute as well.

llj wrote:The quirky speech impediments of Sylvester, Tweety and (hate to say it) Porky and Daffy can also get annoying pretty fast these days.

I was just thinking about what you said above over the weekend. The cartoon character who has a speech impediment that really annoys me is Donald Duck. The Looney Tunes charcters with speech impediments are all coherent, but when I watch something with Donald Duck, I can't understand what the hell he is saying.

Ha! When I was a little kid, I used to have some older female cousins who compared me to Donald Duck. They thought I was "cute" like him. Always wondered if it was actually a compliment!

Most of Disney's cartoon shorts are pretty bland. I find that their cartoon shorts hold up the worst of all the animation studios from that era. I guess that's what happens when you sell yourself as a family friendly company--you inevitably get bland.

That is SO true! The funny thing is, kids here in Japan act shocked when I say I don't like Disney. They have Mickey and Donald crap all over their pencil cases and such. I ask them if they've even seen the cartoons, and they haven't. How can they say they like Disney stuff when they haven't even seen the cartoons? If asked to describe Bugs Bunny, I can say he is witty, clever, cunning, mischievous, unbeatable, and does goofy stuff like dressing up as a woman to seduce his enemies and make them look like idiots, then he'll kiss them, punch them, and run away. Then when asked to describe Mickey? Um, he has big round ears and.... um, sometimes does stuff? If you look at them from a purely character design perspective, they are just as bland.

I might splurge for this set:

http://www.amazon.ca/Looney-Tunes-Volum ... YIK6Y9EEQB