#New Reivew

[midnight-star-world]

#CountryMusic

Justin Moore - Stray Dog

So today on the MSR (Midnight Star Review), I would like to talk about the latest album from Country Music Singer Justin Moore. The new album is titled "Stray Dog" and was released on May 5th, 2023. So let's talk about the career of Justin Moore for a little bit before we dive into the new album.

Justin has brought us such hits like "If Heaven wasn't so far away", "Small town USA", & "Why we drink". Other hits from Justin are songs like "Til my last day", "The ones that didn't make it back home", & "Bait a hook". Justin has scored 6 number ones on my weekly list MSR (Midnight Star Report). My weekly list combines both CMT (Country Music Television), the Billboard Country Music Airplay Charts, & even myself. The list used to include GAC (Great American Country) until the list officially retired at the end of 2018. But let's talk about 8 track album up next before we dive too far off track.

The lead single from the album was "With a woman you love" which already went number one. And the next single is "You, me, and whiskey" with Priscilla Block which is currently in the top 20 songs on the weekly lists. Other songs you should check out are "Everybody get along" with Riley Green which mentions both Hank Williams, & Waylon Jennings, & the title track "Stray dogs". The stand out tracks in my opinion are "That wasn't Jack", & "Better slow". and Justin co-wrote 7 out of 8 tracks and even had help from David Lee Murphy. Here is the rest of the track list now.

Track list.

Everybody get along (Justin Moore & Riley Green).

That wasn't Jack.

With a woman you love.

Better slow.

Stray dogs.

Country on it.

You, me, and whiskey (Justin Moore & Priscilla Block).

Get rich or drunk trying.

And that's a wrap for the track list. And on the MSR (Midnight Star Review), I would give this album a 3.5 out of 5 stars. The biggest hate I would have for the album is only 8 tracks. Justin usually puts out a lot more songs from his album releases. Not a bad album tho, and I would like to thank you for taking the time to read this weekly list. See ya all next time.

[ijustwant2ride]

Motorcycle Movie Review: Florian's Knights

Saint Florian – the Patron Saint of Firefighters By the title of the movie, you can guess this is a film about a firefighter motorcycle club.  You would be right, but there is a lot more to it than just a motorcycle club movie.

Saint Florian – the Patron Saint of Firefighters By the title of the movie, you can guess this is a film about a firefighter motorcycle club.  You would be right, but there is a lot more to it than just a motorcycle club movie. This is a movie more about the mental health aspects of first responders and what they bring home after years of service.  How PTSD is impacting their lives and that of…

[afrobeatsindacity]

ALBUM REVIEW: YEMI ALADE - AFRICAN BADDIE

In late 2013, Yemi Alade's breakout single, "Johhny", debuted and opened a new dimension to a Nigerian music industry that was then coming of age. At the time, future stars Wizkid and Davido were on the first lap of a journey that would be synchronised, not by coincidence, with Nigeria's dominance in world music. Burna Boy was not operating at nearly the same wattage, but the quality of his early work was never in contest, even though it was not to be properly appreciated until much later — he, quite literally, was leaving an impact for eternity.

Across the gender line sat Tiwa Savage and Seyi Shay, soprano vocalists retraining their voices to contend with the bustle of Nigerian pop, and finding success with tracks designed to scratch the love itch without piercing too deep to reveal heartbreak. Yemi Alade's entry into this mix was a welcome addition that filled a quota we didn't realise was open — one of a puissant performer, who could swing thighs for the most energetic delivery all the while maintaining a vocal tone that compelled you to join her in this loosening of joints. Her music is simple, designed to pull you to the dance floor by any means possible but mostly through the route of romance. With music like this, lyricism comes a distant third to a crafty beat and an ability to flow with it, so that it is not uncommon to hear neologism inserted when the English language reaches its limitation and cannot produce a word or phrase suitable to fit into both the song's discourse and rhyme.

After a while, she would come to use French to widen her vocabulary, adding it to her already impressive repertoire of English, Igbo, Yoruba and Swahili(!) to become a true polyglot. More importantly, as Africa's colonisation struggle ultimately saw most of the continent split between England and France in obeisance, the knowledge of these two languages was the engine behind her spreading her tentacles across the continent to lay her claim as Mama Africa.

Her first reach for the title was the 2014 release of "Kissing", the folk love ballad that accelerated the K-i-s-s-i-n-g nursery rhyme into a pop cadence that was placed over beats borrowed and refined from Coupé-décalé of Ivory Coast. For its remix, she dug deeper into her French inclinations, recruiting French-Ivorian singer Marvin with whom she swapped lines of French-glazed romance. For its poster, the then upcoming singer, only two years removed from her breakout single, made a bold statement — replacing the middle "A" of her surname with the map of Africa. With hindsight in our corner, we can proclaim this move to have been equal parts prescient and foundational, being the earliest building block of a career that grows in both stature and span, as she employs collaborations and languages to draw more and more regions from Africa into cognizance of her, to throw its citizens under her self-styled motherly wing.

In the years since this, however, Afropop has shed off a lot of its vim, and as a lot of its creators work their melodies into slower, more engrossing production, music begins to cater for the slow Saturday morning as much as it did for the bustling Friday night before. The Nigerian charts shine favourably on those who aim for mellow groove rather than back-breaking dance. For African Baddie, Yemi Alade's latest project, however, she remains unevolved, for better and worse. The album opens with "Pounds And Dollars", where she enthuses the 'Soft Life', and the wealth in foreign currencies that accompanies it. Her guest is the Eastern Nigerian rapper, Phyno, and as is his characteristic, he takes rap lines for a spin in English and then Igbo languages. His delivery is not from the top drawer in either language, but as his host had already set the bar so low with such a lazily written chorus, his verse is left with most of the heavy lifting to bring creativity to the opener.

Elsewhere on the album, Yemi Alade's lack of evolution evokes feelings of warmth and not indifference. The very next track, "Overload" brings improvement in buckets, though it recycles a well worn Nigerian pop line to make yet another appearance — "My baby, my baby, my baby give me overload". As stale as these lyrics are, the way they are deftly applied to lift the chorus grant it a spark that several songs on the album sorely lack. Unsurprisingly, French phrases can be found inserted into certain points, mainly used to complete a rhyme sequence when English ran out of ink, but code-mixing like this allows the album to wear the first word of its title with pride.

Elsewhere, the word is dropped from the album's near-eponymous track, "Baddie" and she unveils both patois-speak and ragga, nifty tools for crafting a Jamaican leaning track out of Afropop. The carribean country may not lie within the geographical confines of Africa, but Mama Africa demonstrates her reach to surpass such traditional boundaries. She tows this line once more on "Bubble It", featuring an excellent Spice who is right at home spitting patois lines on wriggling and moving a backside to a beat that is just as bouncy. Once more the actual material is paper thin, but this is one of the tracks that covers up this flaw by dousing its weak writing in music that is simply irresistible.

With her features, she imbues diversity, but quality and cohesion are more erratic. A trio of tracks in the second half of the album all feature artists from outside Nigeria's shores — Bramsito on "Dje Dje", Lamar on "Get Down" and Joé Dwét Filié on "My Man" (French remix) — but the songs are held back greatly by uninventive writing, which is not sufficiently covered for by its music flow. This makes for a contrast with "Ikebe", featuring Zlatan, as its heavy afrohouse production is able to bail out what would otherwise have been the most thematically shallow track on the album. 

With this being her seventh album in as many years, Yemi Alade failing to reach her characteristic highs on African Baddie may be attributed to a burnout. A less optimistic take, though, would instead finger her inability or refusal to evolve in keeping with Nigerian music. However, for as long as she occupies the self-given title of Mama Africa, her music must be viewed with lenses bigger than those used for national-directed music. It is here that African Baddie shines. With her gaze directed at the rest of Africa, she is able to — with strategic features and crafty reworking of African genres — bring her latest effort to a fine finish.

This article was written by Afrobeats City Contributor Ezema Patrick - @ezemapatrick (Twitter)

[bookish-wanderer]

Book Review: Play the Game (Blue Devils Hockey #1) by S.J. Sylvis

There’s nothing wrong with playing the game – except when you know you’re about to lose.⁣As a little girl, I dreamed of becoming many things. A twenty-five-year-old photographer struggling to make ends meet with a mountain of legal fees wasn’t one of them. Making questionable decisions wasn’t either. ⁣⁣After hanging up my camera, I start a job I loathe that has me questioning my morals on a daily…

[the---hermit]

10|03|2023

Today was again a very productive day. I wrapped up my work on my behated How We Read Now and started to work on the second book I have to study for my history of libraries and reading class. I managed to read and annotated the entire first chapter, which was pretty long. Ideally I'd like to finish working on this book by the end of next week, but I don't know yet if that will be possible. Instead of journaling as I didn't feel like it again I took some time to create a new weekly spread on my bullet journal. It's always a very relaxing activity for me.

Productivity:

wrote some final notes on How We Read Now by Naomi S. Baron, so that it will be easier to review once I have to study for the exam

did a bit of study planning, I am struggling a bit to juggle more things at the same time, because my brain tends to focus on one thing, and then move on the next once I am done with the first. Having to juggle more things together in terms of studying always makes me a bit insicure

started reading and annotating the second book I have to study for my history of libraries and reading class

downloaded new protohistory materials on my tablet

wrote another book reivew

practiced Irish on duolingo

continued listening to the audiobook of Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

created a weekly spread on my bujo for next week

Self care:

read first thing in the morning

did some stretching exercises for my back

took a relaxing bath

📖: La Lettura by M. Vivarelli, The Luminous Dead by C. Starling

[zeroaddzero]

"The Boss"

"Carlin opens his book with a discussion of how Bruce came to be called The Boss. According to the legend Carlin perpetuates, Springsteen created the nickname himself. Steve Van Zandt, Bruce’s running partner and co-bandleader at the time, says no one took it seriously until Steve himself started using it. Hearing this story, Springsteen doesn’t confirm, saying, “I’ll leave you with that.” In fact, that’s not actually how it happened. I was at 914 Sound Studios in Blauvelt, New York, the night Bruce became “The Boss”. It was not originally a loving nickname. The guys in the band were having a bad day, they had done 14 different takes of the track to “Jungleland” till 4 am the night before and not one was up to Bruce’s standards. In my years hanging with the band they had always appeared to be friends making music together, yet that night Bruce had been riding them hard and they began saying, “Yes, boss,” in that snarky way of employees yielding to unwelcome authority. It had been going on all day. “Yes, Boss. Yassir, Boss.” You could tell from the way the band was taking to it, repeating the phrase gleefully whenever he asked for anything, that clearly the nickname was going to stick and Bruce didn’t like it. It sounded particularly unsettling to me coming from Clarence, for all the obvious racial reasons. The nickname has taken on a life of its own. The respect for Bruce among band members, and their recognition that, like it or not, he truly is the boss in exactly the way they were chafing against, ultimately trumped the momentary power drive. Now it’s a very effective marketing tool. But even the most intense Springsteen fans don’t know its root, that being called “The Boss” was originally an insult."

- Excerpt from "Who is Bruce Springsteen?", a review of Peter Ames Carlin's 2012 biography on the singer. (via)

I will say that at this point I've heard a million different origin stories for the "boss" nickname so take this story with a grain of salt. The reivew itself is great if you also enjoy a bit of snarky journalistic in-fighting.

[alfietalksaboutcomics]

NYX #1 Explores Life After Krakoa

Hey! It's been awhile since I posted but I'm still around! Late July I did a reivew for Graphic Policy on NYX #1. I posted the link but I'm also going to try something new and post the text of the review here on Tumblr! I also would just like to add that as of this posting the series has gone up to issue #3 and so far it's my favorite book in the From the Ashes relaunch! Anyhow with all that said I'll leave you with the review!

How do you cope with the loss of paradise? This is the question at the heart of the From the Ashes relaunch of X-Men, and no title so far exemplifies that question more than NYX. The mutant island nation of Krakoa is no more and its diaspora is left to pick up the pieces. And like so many of the world’s diasporas, many Krakoans find their new home in New York City, holding onto what community they have left.

This first issue of NYX is told largely through the perspective of Ms. Marvel. She is an interesting character to hinge the first issue on seeing as she never quite got to experience the promise of Krakoa and is still exploring her newfound mutant identity. Writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly pick up the thread of Kamala attending college courses in NYC that was established in her last run of solos. The school that once was receiving funding from an anti-mutant hate group now is host to a ethnic studies course on Krakoa and its diaspora, taught by Xavier’s own Prodigy, now going by Professor Alleyne. Kamala is attending this course alongside her new friend and Prodigy’s former classmate at Xavier’s, Sophie of the Stepford Cuckoos. Other Xavier’s alumni like Anole and Laura Kinney the Wolverine also make appearances in the  comic, as a bartender and vigilante respectively. Seeing Kamala bounce off between these characters is fun and interesting. Alongside these more positive budding relationships Kamala runs into several threats in this issue, one being a anti-mutant group called the “Truthseekers” and another being the mysterious self proclaimed Krakoan dressed in a mix of Magneto and Professor X’s Krakoan costumes, who may or may not have a connection to members of the books cast that should provide for some interesting drama. 

This book should be a particular treat for fans of the Academy X run of comics, that subsect of the X-Men fandom have long been asking for a book that centers around characters from that series and NYX seems like the answer to their prayers. 

I find myself in a curious position vis à vis this book. I myself am a twenty-something queer New Yorker college student. The characters in this book are largely teenager to twenty-something allegorically (and in some cases literally) queer New Yorker college students who are members of a diaspora. This is a setup that is quite similar to my own life. Thus I feel a certain draw to this book that’s subject matter so closely relates to my lived experience. I will admit to getting a kick out of seeing the imfamous Highline sculpture, the Vessel in the issue. I eagerly anticipate seeing more NYC landmarks throughout the following issues. The characters feel pretty authentic to my lived experience, Lanzing and Kelly pretty solidly land the voice of my generation. 

The art by Francesco Mortarino feels like a step up from his work on Avengers, the first page in particular is quite stunning, partly due to Raul Angulo’s quite excellent colors. The characters look appropriately youthful and the rendering of NYC is well done. I’d compare Mortarino’s faces to Luciano Vecchio’s work, but while it’s similar in the angler nature of the faces it’s still suitably different and it’s own thing. In general the issue doesn’t have so much visual spectacle but the art team makes it a compelling visual treat. 

Overall NYX #1 isn’t the most flashy of first issues but it’s laying down a lot of interesting tracks, the characters aren’t really a team yet but honestly I think that’s not exactly what the book is going for. NYX seems to be telling a story about a group of young mutants finding their place in a world post the fall of their homeland, and it does a pretty damn compelling job doing it. This is definitely a book to keep an eye on.

Story: Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly Art: Francesco Mortarino Color: Raul Angulo Letterer: Joe Sabino Story: 8.5 Art: 7.5 Overall: 8.0 Recommendation: Read 

[sapphire-weapon]

hello there, how's your day going :)

i know you've talked about this before, i've seen your answer myself but i just have to say this one to let out some frustration in me lol

i've been scrolling down on tiktok for some eagleone content and whenever i see a video slightly about them there's like "siblings fr" / "brother-sister" captions and it's making me almost fume LMFAOO

what the HELL are these people talking about seriously.

and the comments are even worse, saying "so glad everyone is thinking of them as siblings" kinda shit

i have this urge....urge to puke bc whAT 🗣️🗣️❗❗

like, say something normal like "good friends" or "platonic" at least if you can't see them as a ship, since NOTHING in RE4make between Leon and Ashley are sibling-like to me and im sure many people who know smt little about body language can tell that

i just think this is some kinda propaganda to stop ppl shipping eagleone at this point lol some new ppl could indeed feel bad about shipping them if the majority of the ppl they see on social media see them as... siblings *pukes*

however it makes me wanna write some juicy, intense smut with the ship just to rile these ppl up haha

(thanks for reading this nonsense babbling)

.....

I know it's frustrating, anon. It's easy to ignore one person being dumb and wrong, because your brain can more easily go "ha ha look at what the jackass said" and move on. But to see people being stupid and wrong en masse over and over and over again is a little soul-crushing.

I'm personally going through this with the goddamn mafia background shit. I've kind of reached a point where I'd rather be trapped in a room with the entirety of Aeon fandom than have to bear witness to even just one more motherfucker who actually thinks that Leon is actually legitimately meant to be seen as Italian by Capcom -- ESPECIALLY after seeing what he looks like in Remake -- because apparently half of the people in RE fandom have never actually seen an Italian person in their fucking life. And, as someone from New Jersey, I take that shit personally. My stepdad's last name is Renzulli. Don't fucking tell me that Leon Scott fucking Kennedy is meant to be the son of Italian immigrants.

But I think what's important to bear in mind is that nothing that dumbasses say in this fandom -- no matter how many they are or how many times they say their stupid bullshit -- changes what the canon actually is or says. Twitter/Tumblr/TikTok dumbasses especially have no power over RE canon. When game devs look for fan response, they look for actual fan response to their official tweets and blog posts, as well as some forums (hello ResetEra), prominent content creators on Twitch and Youtube and what their audiences are saying, and game reviews (as well as comments posted on game reivews). No one at Capcom gives a singular flying fuck what the deeper fandom side of fandom is doing or saying, because they know that most of us are certifiable.

So, as rage-inducing as it is, we gotta just let some things go, man.

Leon/Ashley is a canonical romance, intended to be viewed as romantic by Capcom, and that's not going to change no matter how many thinly-veiled misogynists try to bad-faith morality police their way around fandom otherwise.

Leon Kennedy has no official backstory per canon and has never, in any way, shape, or form, been modeled or portrayed in a way that's meant to be viewed as Italian or in a way that makes sense with the idea he has mafia ties in his family or background.

Anyone who ever tries to tell you otherwise is selling something.

Remember: if it's not in the games, it's not canon. And what is in the games is a romance. Full stop.

So, if you can channel that rage into something productive like smut, please, for the love of god, do. It's a way better response than getting yourself all riled up. And this ship needs more creators putting stuff in the tag, besides.

[popculturebuffet]

The KaBlammiest KaBlam! Retrospective: Season 1 Review (Comission by Cory Bryant)

Assume the crash position, hold on tight, take a breath for a new kind of cartoon show review. It's The KaBlammiest KaBlam! Retrospective. And now to take you inside and turn the pages.. your host jake!

Thanks me. So for those less familiar, KaBlam was a mid 90's nickelodeon variety show. Framed as a cartoon comic book, hosts and 90's kids, the everyman henry and the michevious june, would get up to various shenanigans while introducing various shorts.

The show was unique in that unlike other variety cartoons like Tiny Toons or Animaniacs (both bangers I need to review more of), KaBlam's shorts were all from diffrent creators, pilots that had been shopped to the network and instead of picking them up for a full series, became their own series within this series. There were also various pilots that didn't get a full segment that still aired on the show along with music videos and for this season french experimental shorts. It was something unlike anything else before or since, and it was truly wonderful.

Speaking of wonderful this is also the first review comissioned by someone in my day to day life. One of my best friends since 8th grade, the guy I see most films with and one of the sweetest persons you'll ever meet, Cory Bryant. Cory asked out of the blue if I could review KaBlam, I said

And here we are, with him having already paid in advance for four seasons worth of content. As for why.. he just thought it was neat and would make a good reivew.. and he was right. Like I said, KaBlam really ISN'T like anything else i've covered: it's essentially 6 diffrent shows in one with a few one offs thrown in. So while iv'e done full season reviews before KaBlam! is going to take a diffrent approach, and has been a bit of a challenge. But it's a challenge i'm more than happy to have taken up, so keep your heiner in the recliner as I turn the page and introduce or reintroduce ya'll to one of nick's most creative, intresting and hilarious shows.

The Secret Origin of KaBlam!

KaBlam came about because future Nick President, Herb Scanell, naturally getting tons of cartoon shorts pitched for his cartoon channel, wanted to try live action shorts with a cartoon sensiblity. One of these was Action League NOW!, a short about action figure superheroes getting ran over or crushed a LOT, and it was picked up to be ran on All That!, saturday night live for cool kids. ALN creator Robert Mittenhall wanted to do more with the shorts. Mittenhall had worked at nick for a while now as a story editor for the adventures of Pete and Pete, creator of sitcom Welcome Freshman and Co-Creator of Double Dare, and with the help of Pete and Pete co creators Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi, pitched a variety show to Nick: Various animated or semi live action shorts all done by diffrent studios

The only thing left was a wraparound, something to link them together, and with the team not having animation experince, they tapped artist Mark Marek. Marek wa sa long time animation fan, having gone to school for it after being insipired by Peanuts and Johnny Quest as a kid, and having done animation for Cindi Lauper and They Might Be Giants.

So while pitching ideas, he got the call back from Nick and thus KaBlam was fully formed, with Marek creating hosts Henry and June. Marek also kept the show allive by posting it and all in all is pretty damn awesome.

So with our main show in place, I can get to this reviews format: while I COULD go episode by episode and the shorts within, I decided instead to look at each major segment one at a time, as each short is essentially it's own show within KaBlam! with it's own creator/showrunner, art style and what have you, the Henry and June wraparounds included. There will also be an extra segment for one off or less seen segments.

So with that we have our first cartoon

Henry and June our are hosts.. and also our wraparound. For season 1 at least i'ts mostly unconnected nonsense. There's an episode or two with an ovearching plot, but for the most part it's just funny skits between each cartoon following two great characters: straight man henry and mischievous june. The segments as a whole aren't bad, though they do run into a problem: repetttion. There area LOT of skits that are just "June torments henry for little to no reason". A LOT, i'ts something I hope goes down as the series goes on and didn't really remember from both the first time I watched the show as a kid and binge watching a chunk of it with my niece a few years back, so hopefully it goes down. At the very least it looks like the first episode of season 2 directly adresses it, and while that dosen't guarantee the problem's gone it at least shows the creators recognize they might of leand on this joke too much

Otherwise it's just some fun nonsense, gets really weird with it and has a lot of fun with the format: our heroes are ostensibly in a comic book so we get fights over who turns the page, hanging on to panels and in probably my faviorite joke of the season, June deciding that if she never turns the page, the show never ends.. only to find out they just turn the lights out if they go over time. It's a good wraparound and outside of the Henry Torture Porn never really got old, and even some of that's funny it just depends on the bit. It's more ther'es SO DAMN MUCH OF IT. And so you see what I mean as we go thorugh the henry and june segments for the season, i'l lhave a Henry Abuse Count. Also I won't be going into each bit in detail as there are a LOT. I will for the other shows, but there's just so much here and so much of the show to cover as is.

The following are the titles for the episodes themselves.. or at least what fans use, using the slogan on the back of the comic each episode. Honestly I don't mind it as it's better than NO titles, especially on a show this loose and freeform. The titles aren't exactly descriptie, but they at least allow us to tell them apart. It's better than say, adapting an acclaimed manga and not giving us any titles or even a chapter 1. You didsapoitned me pluto.

Your Real Best Friend: Our heroes explain waht kablam is, June lets henry nearly get eaten by a spider, chuckimation is explained.. another day at the office really.

Henry Abuse Count: 1. June leaves Henry to nearly get eaten by a spider.

It's Flavorific: I remembered almost none of these bits. Only june creating a superhero with no weaknesses that beats up henry and June outright beating up henry for tricking her.

Henry Abuse Count: 3

Comics for Tomorrow Today: June wants to be a superheroine, and tries to leverage turning her eyes out and such. Henry gets jealous when she gets more marketable powers and we get a nice bit of her playing up his page turning prowess. Also the count dosen't go up one iota, so that's nice

Not Just For People Anymore: June gets lost trying to interview sniz and fondue, tasers henry for reasons I honestly forgot but it does not suprise me in the slightest, and they have the classic your side my side nonsense. June invites henry to join a party she throws. It's a nice ending

Henry Abuse Count: 4

All Purpose KaBlam!: June invents an automatic page turner that goes bonkers, tries to drop a tank on henry, and tries to cost him a golf game.

Henry Abuse Count: 7

What The Astronauts Drink: A rare one where all the shorts have a theme. SPACCCCEEEEEE. It's a fun one as our heroes get ready to journey into space. We also get June soiling herself because Gross Out

But thankfully only shows up twice this season.

KaBlam Gets Results!: This episode sure did happen. The only memorable part of this one is June pulling down henry's pants revealing he has boxers of richard nixon. She does this for every suprising shorts we're only going to count it once.

Henry Abuse Count: 8

You've Tried the Rest! Now Try the Best: A really fun set of wraparounds: Henry throws June down a volcano to cure her laughter.

June drops stuff on Henry she borrowed and naturally broke, and June ends the episode erasing everything including Henry's head. Huh so that's the secret origin of the headless body of agnew. All in all one of the best of the season

Henry Abuse Count: 10 June Abuse Count: 1

Untitled or Why June Refuses to Turn the Page: Another banger, with the opening and closing bits being the standouts: June hosts diffrent things other than the show she's doing like talk shows or beauty pagents, a beatufiully dumb gag, and then refuses to turn the page and gets blacked out as a result. A straight up classic

Henry Abuse Count: 11. She throws him a side to go ahead with her plan.

A Little Dab Will Do Ya: These bits really hti their stride towards the end, something I didn't realize till I started typing this. This one's also a classic, ending on my second faviorite bit of the season: June rips out a page, makes it into an airplane and we get a ride like the wind refrence deliveried by a Sasquatch. Pure magic.

Henry Abuse Count: 14. June makes henry into abstract art, has mr foot beat him up, and then Mr foot beats him up for accidently unclogging him. Mr Foot is a big foot or sasquatch and he's great.

Built for Speed; Other than a bit about the two's stunt doubles, I honestly forgot this set.

Comics of Champions: Our third of four wraparounds that have an overarching story. Thunder Girl from action league now is vistiing, Henry has a crush on her and June is a dick about it, making him swell up with embarassment.

Henry Abuse Count: 17, as June abuses Henry's blushing to make his head swell three times.

Resistance is Futile: We end the season on a fun award show spoof as they elect the Kablammiest cartoon. It has a lot of great bits including an overwrought music number and the payoff in which the winner, Flesh and Melt Man of Action League Now win a new car.. that as per the series standard, runs them over. An all timer to go out on.

So with that we can move on to something more groovy. Though if you liked the idea of the Kablammy awards stay tuned as i'll be having my own version at the end of the review. For now though...

Sniz and Fondue was created by indie comics creator Mike R. Brandon, who created the comic Puppy Action. A copy got into the hands of at the time Nick Head Linda Smesky who loved it and asked Brandon to make a pilot. The resulting short "Psyched for Snuppa" was well loved, but ultimately lost out to the better toon, Rocko's Modern Life pilot "Sucker for the Suck-0-Matic", creating a weird alternate reality where Rocko never made it to series and might of ended up on KaBlam! instead. Still Sniz and Fondue was super well loved, so it got picked up for KaBlam! instead.

The first season's animation was done at PitchiPoi animatoin.. which brandon hated for often being off model, and they switched companies for season 2. Me I think the animation looks good and if it looks this crisp off model, I can't wait to see how season 2 looks when we get there. Brandon also wanted to voice Fondue and have his best friend voice Snizz, but got vetoed on the latter and on the former at the time creators voicing things in their own tunes which execs were HEAVILY against it saying "you don't want to be that close to your own show"

Somehow they did, and while Brandon has nothing against the voice actors who played Sniz and Fondue, their simply not what he wanted. It's very clear both from a reddit ama I found with brandon (I was so happy to find something besides wikis and hopefully can find more as this goes on. ) It's very clear while he loves the project, kids animation just wasn't for him and despite being offered a full series order, left, with Spongebob Taking the spot he was offered. If I had a Nickle for every time Sniz and Fondue didn't become a recurring series so a key part of cartoons as a whole could, i'd have two nickles. Which isn't a lot but it's WEIRD it happened twice.

Sniz and Fondue follows Sniz, a hyperactive ferret with the accent of a 50's greaser and the impulse control of a hyperactive ferret and his best friend and roommate Fondue a mild tight ass who likes building models and wears a chefs hat because it looks neat. Their voiced by Rick Gomez, aka "endless' mike from Pete and Pete and Oscar Riba. The only two other recurring characters are Snuppa, played by John Andrew Walsh, a videographer and the chill dude in the apartment and the slightly more uptight Bianca, played by Monica Lee Bashforth, who gets annoyed at the two more often but is just as likely to enjoy the chaos.

The show is your pretty standard "Two guys hang out and get into shenanigans' sitcom, one of the first and certainly one of the first in animation, coming off as a 90s era regular show. Snuppa and Bianca show up as needed and from what i've read eventually get phased out as Brandon and crew realized they didn't really need them, though I think their fine.

What helps Sniz and Fondue work is while the two are oppisities to a point, Sniz being hyperactive and fairly stupid and Fondue being calmer and actually thinking things through, the show gets how to make a duo like this work: Fondue isn't immune to hyjinks and in seperate episodes becomes a fashion magnate or gets creepily obessed with the ventrioquist dummy Sniz made for him. There's never any of the real cliche conflcits you'd expect from the two, their just slightly diffrent, have enough intrests to bond them, enough diffrences to bring the laughs, and are on the same page more than not.

Sniz and Fondue is really charming and fun, while also, like most KaBlam! shorts being incredibly weird. It was one of my faviorites and kicks off the show more often than not, getting it started on the right track

Sniz and Fondue Season 1 episodes

A Toxic Tail: The first short and one of the weaker ones. This one is more on the usual end of this sort of squabble: Sniz keeps breaking into Fondue's room to jump on the bed, so Fondue buys a deadly scorpion to keep him out.

Yet while the plot is pretty bog standard there were hints at what i'd later love about these shorts: there's the weird Exotic Pets guy who sells Fondue the murder scorpion and the resolution: once the scorpion is scooped, Fondue decides to simply charge Sniz for jumping on his bed, complete with a velvet rope queue, and Sniz happily accepts. IT's one of the best things about these shorts: most endings are pretty positive and usually the two reconcile by the end, but in a way that's uniquely them.

Stuntbike Sniz: the short that sold me on these. Sniz buys a motorcycle and Fondue is against it as he dosen't want his best friend to get messed up. The short is mostly sniz doing hilaroiusly half assed ramp stunts that aren't much of a challenge but still result in him getting mildly injured, and Fondue shaking his head at it. Fondue would be grating.. if he wasn't trying to keep his best friend from horribly mangling himsef. That and even getting mangled, Sniz is happy with the attention. Also this has Sniz wax lyrical, saying the lyrics to "Your the inspiration".. and turns out this , to my delight wasn't a one off thing. This is still my faviorite of them but we get a LOT of random little musical refrence moments I love.

Mod Stylin: This one works for me in part because it's surprisingly down to earth: Sniz needs a LOT of hair gel to keep his mohawk up, so Snupa, to save money, buys him the cheap stuff instead. Problem is overdoing it makes his hair fall out. We also get a lot of fun stuff as Fondue tries to restore Sniz' hair, which itself is fun as it's the first time Fondue really gets to do weird shit and i'm here for it. My favorite hair restoration attempt is Fondue planting a flower on sniz's head and the seasons passing as we wait for it to grow. I love long time skip gags, so it's a personal thing. The ending, which has Fondue have his head sympathy shaved, is just adorable.

Fashionably Fondue: I love this one simply for taking a very common plot and making it feel unique. In this one Fondue decides to become a fashion mogul because most jeans can't fit sniz's tiny butt and stature, promising to make jeans that actually fit for him if he gets famous. Your probably expecting as I did that the episode would either have Fondue get self absorbed, go back on the promise but then fufill it in the end or fufilling it would end his career.

While it does go with option B, how it does it is neat. As is how Fondue becomes a fashion mogul in the first place as he throws one of his drawings in frustration, and it ping pongs hilariously via slapstick and bee gee's refrences till a fashion person gets it. Not only that but Fondue.. just does what he promised immeditely and rather than get laughed at or something for it, he fails.. but only because Sniz is GENUINELY the only customer.. and rather than be too bummed Fondue is happy Sniz has jeans that make his butt look good. You know, I try not to ship EVERYTHING that comes across my brain but the more I write on this series the more awesomely homoerotic it comes out, and i'm just fine with that.

Second Hand Sniz: This one honestly feels like a regular show script that got lost in time and wound up in 1996, toned down a bit as I could see this exact scenario happening with rigby. Sniz refuses to learn how to tell time, and so his roomates, fed up with his crap and him relying on them for the time (This was BEFORE everyone had 80 devices in their house that have a clock as a bonus feature, so you kinda had to back then). Does it make no sense they have no digital clocks in the mid 90's?

Even with a bunch of 20 somethings not having a lot of money they could still get one cheap.. or would just to shut Sniz up. But the antics that ensue from them writing "do not tell me the time" on his head, to Sniz deciding rather than learn to tell time to JUMP to the hot air balloon their in, ending up on a giant clock and learning the skill through trauma.. it's great. One of the best of season 1

Mr. Sniz's Wild Ride: Some aliens decide to take Sniz in as their mascot, and after some deliberation he accepts.. then regrets it when their annoyed they got exactly the hyperactive ferret they asked for. This one is okay but I do love the resolution that the aliens just shoot them out of the ship, as well as Fondue sneaking aboard to help Sniz. One of the weakest eps of season 1, but it's not TERRIBLE. It's just beige. Very beige.

Sneaky Clean: This is one of those episodes about GERMS kids shows did... and I GENUINELY had to check and make sure it wasn't just Hey Arnold that did this as that's the only one that came to mind, but it is a thing.

This one has a neat take as while it has the standard setup of "Character finds out germs are everywhere and takes it about as well as I took the cancelation of Close Enough", which is to say

Here Fondue just straight up builds a plastic germ free biosphere to live in. And spends it in his underwear because why not at this point. I haven't brought it up but under the characters skirts is tighty whiteys we see frequently because they did the research and kids think underwear is funny. Eventually Fondue realizes he's missing stuff, it's a heartwarming mostly naked ending.

The Borrowers: This one is okay but I do like the setup: Fondue borrows a quarter from what turns out to be a loan shark and our heroes try to escape the guy then try paying it off. I love how the loan sharks compound intrest is 300% a minute and how what sets off the plot, a call in radio contest, ends up solving it. I also like a bit abotu Fondue getting annoyed Sniz is stealing hotel towels. All in all it sure was average.

Dark Vator: At the Captain Sharpiro, the boys faviorite sci fi show, convention Sniz and Fondue get stuck in an elevator due to Sniz's hubris and Sniz of course thinks the best person to bring for help is the actor who plays captain sharpiro. You've seen this plot too. While Sniz and Fondue is fun, I didn't realize till reading it out how some plots are just.. things you've seen before. And would see again on Hey Arnold and done better because Hey Arnold is the best. Really gotta cover that show sometime. But i've still got a lot of kablam to cover so...

You Dummy: This one is just wholesome, then weird, then wholesome again: Fondue does some action figure theater for the roomies, and admits he wants to be a vintrioquist but dosen't have the bones for a puppet. Sniz makes him one in his unseen till now and possibly again workshop.

Then .. Fondue becomes obsessed with his puppet, despite being VERY bad at actually being a ventriloquist, Sniz feels bad and helps, and this causes fondue to spiral and Sniz to get jealous and nearly take a saw to the puppet. I do like how the climax is he just.. chips it slightly. And this still somehow makes it unusable. Once again I think of a show who did a similar plot slightly better, but for once i'ts not hey arnold but king of the hill. Granted in that one's case it both tapped into the hank bobby relationship well and had Dale Gribble obessed with murdering a dummy and put said dummy into a wood chipper while blindfolding it and mixing it in with two chairs and a tabogan before clorforming himself, so it's hard to compete. Still a great episode.

Making of a Supermodel: Okay THIS one is the weakest of season 1. It's the old "character wants to open toy, other character wants it mint in box, character opens thing anyway" thing. You've seen it before, they don't really do anything new or intresting with it here, and while Hey Arnold didn't do it better this time, Hey Arnold had higher standards than to do it at all.

Rage Against the Vending Machine: This one has a bit of a story. So for a good chunk of season 1, I used youtube since about a third of the season is missing from Parmount+ due to rights issues. I'll explain why later. So the thumbnail for this episode of KaBLam.. was what LOOKED like a naked Bianaca wearing a crown. So I was distracted not by the possibly naked woman, as while I am into many things the characters of this show aren't one of them, but more.. what the fuck was this episode about.

Turns out that wasn't bianca but a tiny naked man who makes novelties the guys go to complain to after not getting a plastic spider from one of those cool capsule things. Turns out, unsuprisingly, the very naked man is scamming people by not putting the spiders in and our heroes have to stop him from melting them all. THey also get bribed with their own vending machines full of nothing but spiders. Hopefullyt hey both took the bribe AND hauled his ass before the ftc. This one is fun though both for it's relatablity of wanting just ONE thing from one of those capusle machines and not getting it and the weird naked man. They just never adress that he's both tiny and naked and it makes it funny as a result.

War of the Super Geeks: Our finale and a really fun one. Sniz and Fondue fight over a prize inside a cereal box. Snuppa decides to turn this to his advantage by making them do a gauntlet that's doing chorse for him and bianca, making them brownies then doing their laundry, followed by a fight for their sick amusment. I not only like Snuppa turning this very stupid argument to his advantage, but also the fun of them: we have Fondue sabotaging snizz who has to scramble to buy store bought, Snizz and Fondue both giggling over Bianca's undies like the 12 year olds they are and the two deciding to share the toy and turn the whole mock trial thing Snuppa did to start this mess on the couple for their bs. A fun episode to close out a pretty solid season.

Action League Now! is probably the most famous of the KaBlam! shorts: It started on all that before here, got a burger king kids meal toy before eventually being repacakaged as it's own show after KaBlam! ended. If your not thinking of Henry and June when KaBlam! comes to mind, it's likely these guys. It's clear while Nick was Meh on KaBLam! after a while and kinda just.. gave up on it after the first season despite giving it three more, they LOVED Action League Now!

Action League Now! has a great setup: the characters are all action figures, whose world is integrated into ours: their soccer/football stadium is a game of fooseball, the couch is a canyon, and cars frequently run over our heroes as one of the most literal running gags i've ever seen. Action League Now! has a lot of clever world building and set design, using every part of the house and every household object possible to create it's world.. and mutilate it's characters.

Yeah Action League's other big hook is taking the hammer to it's main character.. and ceiling fan, rotating fan, waffle iron, lots of dropped objects, the same car over and over, and whatever else they can think up. How funny it is varies: when the show is being creative and using everything they can to attack our heroes, it's hilarious, comedy gold and great slapstick. But the show doe sfall back on "dropping things on them" or "running the characters over" at times , the same way. It just dosen't have the thrill of say, having Stinky Diver get eaten by a dog or melt man melted into a waffle. It's when the show puts some elbow grease into the slapstick and the world it's built that it's at it's best.

As for the in universe premise the setup is simple: The Action League are superheroes made up of random generic toys that a kid might have: The Flesh, a super strong, super naked and super dumb guy whose basically a stripped he man figure, Stinky Diver, an obnoxious asshole , diving expert and gi joe. Thunder Girl, she flies like thunder and is clearly a repurposed barbie style doll, and Meltman , a melted gi joe whose obnoxious as he is useless, and as a result gets most of the slapstick, which fills my heart with such joy. Suffer, suffer tiny melted man.

Helping them are the Chief, their boss and Bill, their lab guy. Well the Chief really just tells them to do stuff and berates them for being a cavelcade of Fuckups but someone has to.

The action leagues days are mostly spent opposing their arch enemy, the mayor, who has a unique weird raspy voice, kinda halfway to nixon, and is a delight as he comes up with various plans to kill our heroes and somehow hasn't been indicted.

Action League Now is not half bad. The animation style is unique, the cast, all from the radio show WDVE in Pittsburg is really dang good, my only real complaint is character wise the characters are mostly one gimmick. Stinky is an asshole who smells like one, The Flesh is stupid, Thunder Girl is constantly and rightfully shooting down melt man, and Melt Man sucks suprising no one. The show's creativity helps it along though ,as while most of the plots are stock, the sheer novelty keeps the show a humming and hopefully as we go we can see it evolve and really play with the brilliant setup it has here.

Road to Ruin: The Mayor drives around like an asshole and litters, fufilling his campaign promises but putting the world in jeapordy I guess Our heroes have to stop him and get hit by , run over by and generally futzed with by a car a lot. It was okay.

No Fly Zone: The Mayor squirts white Goo on thunder girl

This robs her of her powers just as the Mayor kidnaps some children to a bird house. This one was a lot of fun, from Thunder Girl trying to use ballons with Stinky naturally ruining it by harpooning her ballons, and the kids the mayor kidnaps because he has a quota of being an asshole to fufill by friday or his ass is on the line end up turning the tables.

The Wrath of Spotzilla: A two part adventure, and apparently the only two part short in Kablam! history. Granted every Action League Now! short is presented in two parts, but it's in the same episode. This is two diffrent shorts. Anyways an ancient moster, aka a cute doggo, is unleahsed and our heroes fail as usual. NOrmally if something has a dog in it it's automatically better and while Spotzilla dosen't hurt the episode they really dont 'do anything new in the "household animal is a threat to smaller creatures" concept. Or disaster movie parody. You wasted a dog Action League Now! Foreshame! Foreshame! Fore...

Nightmare on Memory Lane: This is a fun one: Meltman gets amnesia after he falls out a window, and needing a formula he stole from the mayor, the Action League tries to jog his memory.. by dropping things on top of him repeatedly while he reacts more bored than anything. IN other words this segment is pure comedy gold. Maybe it's the same reaction, maybe it's the carnage, maybe it's that I love to see meltman suffer.... we'll never know.

....

All of those things, it's all of those things.

Dog Day Afterschool: the mayor tries to shoot the Chiefs dog up into space.

So our heroes have to rescue him. As usual they fail kinda hard but he lands in the mayor's kitty pool hot tub so it's all good.. excep tfor the two women who were with him. I'm pretty sure they died as we never see them after the crash. People the Action League Have Murdered Somehow Count: 2

RoboFlesh: This is one of my faviorites of season 1, tied with one we'll get to soon. The Mayor decides to pull the old "evil clone" scheme, locking the flesh in a lunchbox with a deviled egg lure and debuting RoboFlesh... just as naked but with more bolts sticking out of his body, so .. sexier. And really RoboFlesh's deisgn is a major part of why I love this episode: jamming a bunch of screws into an action figure to make him an evil robot seems like something a kid would do, and as an added bonus NO ONE CAN TELL THEM APART. It's a classic evil twin joke sure, one is obvious.. but by making it THIS obvious, as well as having Robo Flesh have a robotic tin to his voice and you know, throw a cinderblock at the action league, it just ratchets it up. How they solve the dillema is also great.

Stinky Diver: I got this one. Hey stupid! The Flesh: Yes? Stinky Diver: That's him alright (Harpoons RoboFlesh into a blender)

IN the Belly of The Beast: The Mayor uses a vacum. This one dosen't suck, but it just may blow... it's average is what i'm saying. Good setup it just really doesn't use. It's also meltman centric. Though the rest of the team does mock him for trying ot be interim leader, so it at least has that.

Where Pidgeons Dare: My faviorite of the season, the premise is simple: the league has to guard the heirs to the queen of pidgeons. Instead of the mayor though the threat is our heroes are morons and the eggs keep getting destroyed. Also two kids steal one to throw it on the sidewalk while meltman tries to perform cpr. This one just has a LOT of good black comedy, and the ending twist, that they were somehow at the wrong nest, is great. As is meltman getting eaten by a snake.

Stink or Swim: Stinky has ptsd after his brother apparently drowned in a toilet. Everyone is a dick about him having ptsd. He manages to save everyone in the end. This one is alright.

Thunder and Lightning: The mayor dresses up as a new superheroine, lightning lady and upstages thunder girl. This one's okay, I do like how lightning lady uses various barbque related things to take out the boys, and how she smacks thunder girl with shrimp, but I have almost nothing else to say about this one. YOu've seen this plot before. Teen Titans did it better a decade later. Next.

Sinkhole of Doom; One of ALN's many pilots, Thundergirl has to rescue the mayor's hot son from a garbage disposal. Stinky Diver is a jealous douche. Thundergirl naturally chooses the mayor's son as unlike Meltman, his face is mangled but he still has a personality. And you know isn't meltman. A lot of great gags in this one, with both the use of the garbage disposal and most of our heroes getting caught on a ceiling fan.

Testimony of Terror: Another banger of a season finale, an obnoxious kid who was witness to the Mayor's crimes needs to be protected. Which crimes we don't know. Unfortunatley for our heroes the kid's abit of a monster and does creatively fucked up things from them, from putting stinky in a vcr which puts Stinky in the tv because science, to thunder girl getting bodied by a rotating fan, and of course my faviorite, meltman getting turned into a waffle. Naturally the kid also easily takes care of the mayor.. and then drops more shit on our heroes. Sounds like someone could easily win the recall election , eh kid. I mean it's clear the people of action league town lean right. Sociopathy is big in the party right now. not sure about 1993 but I like his chances. I don't really have a segue so...

Life With Loopy comes to us from Stephen Holman. Holman is an intensely weird and deeply fascinating man. Seriously I don't know what I was expecting on his KaBlam! wiki entry (Which by the by has been an invulable resource), but I wasn't expecting a performing artist who made short films, added live theater to them, and performed in venus across new york.

This does explain life with Loopy's unique style and blend of whatever styles holman could thrown in: Life with Loopy uses top motion puppets, but with flat magnetic heads to make expressions easier ot swap out. There's also live action charaters, hand puppets, and a general loose yet intreicatley built style I love about these shorts. They clearly took a lot of effort and Holman has my utter respect.

Life with Loopy came about because Holman pitched a diffrent short, meet the shrimpkins, to play between shows and during commericals, ala the adventures of pete and pete and ironically how Life with Loopy would be used later on Nicktoons. Nick wanted an animated segment with it and while Meet the Shrimpkins didn't go forward they loved said segment so much, Life with Loopy was added to KaBlam! and the rest is history.

Life With Loopy has a great setup: Larry, an 11 year old down to earth boy, relates the various misadventures of his sister Loopy, an energetic 7 year old. Each episode takes a problem a kid would have like not wanting to take a bath, loosing a goldfish or trying to get something from under the couch cushions and esclates it in glorious fashion: Loopy dosen't bathe for so long she grows a forest on her and becomes a national park, hearing the toilet leads to goldfish heaven leads to loopy traveling there, and the couch cushions lead to an underground world where various junk is smelted to power the earth's core. It's all insane, it's all insanely creative, and it's all wonderful. I dickered on if this was my faviorite or not.. but yeah, Life with Loopy is easily my favorite of the recurring segments, though Snizz and Fondue and the Off Beats both come close. But you just can't match this one for i'ts creatvitiy, unqiue style and heart. Loopy is endearing and relatable all at once and you can't help but root for her in whatever she's gotten into.

Hi-Fi Frankenstein: Larry is busy with a punk phase, calling people goobers while singing Beef Steak, great band name and as a nice touch the poster for Beefsteak is in the background of larry's room for the rest of the shorts, so Loopy does what any kid would do: she builds a robot out of an old stero. Robo-Larry is fine at first, but turns out to have gone all Ultron on the poor girl and wants to conquer the world for appliances. It's a great start for these shorts (not THE start but we'll get to that), a fun premise, and a sweet ending with Larry realizing how lonely his sister was and assuring her she's got him.

Trouble with Inflation: This one has another relatable premise: Loopy and Larry's easing going dad only gets mad at one thing. BILLS. BILLS BILLS BILLS. So Loopy wants to stop the mailman from delivering them. She tries being nice to the guy to stop delivering bills, then decides to just turn the house into a balloon. And in her defense while most mail carriers are just people trying to do thier job, this guy is a stone faced dick who just HAS to announce Loopy's dad got bills and creates a fucking sky bicycle.. which while impressive is still a dick move just to deliver a man bills.

The resolution is deeply sweet though: Loopy can't stop the bills, a fairly mature resolution.. so she just sends her dad a letter encouraging him and telling her she loves him instead.

Egghead: This one I remembered simply for it's unique puppet: Loopy is told, jokingly, that if she eats too many eggs, she'll become one. And sure enough this actually comes true and Larry, left babysitting loopy, has to keep a giant chicken from trying to hatch her. This one would be great enough for the egg puppet and utterly weird, even for this show, premise, but we also have a delightfully off exteriminator guy who can't help because there's a man sized giant mantis in his office he has to deal with.

Back To Nature: This one seemed pretty inocious for this show: Loopy refuses to bathe because "i'll just get dirty again" and in a rarity for this show her parents DO still try to get her to shower. Normally they just roll with whatever she's doing this week, which is adorable. They don't care if they end up in the sky, their daughter means well dang it. Her dad telling her she has to bathe as long as she's under his roof lead sto her camping outside and being declared a national park, easily my faviorite joke of this season of shorts. I had to pause for a moment because it's just.. so dang weird. And the fact THAT'S what gets her to bathe as the idea of tourists around her terrifies her? *chef's kiss*

Lunar Loopy: Another favorite of mine. Loopy wants to meet the man in the moon. We also get the first hint Larry has a scientific bent as he feels one isn't there due to science. Naturally he dosen't realize what show he's on and Loopy lassos luna to earth to prove her point. WE also get an utterly adorable moon dance party with the two. We also do have a man in the moon making shadowpuppets, a very weird man played byu the guy from the egghead short, now as an astronaut who got left behind by nasa and is greatful he can get off the moon, which loopy thankfully puts back before the earth is destroyed. A charming, wonderfully mellow short.

Goop on the Loose: Larry tries to figure out just the right goop for his hair while a can of mystery goop in the cabin turns into a gremlin. Loopy tries hunting it.. onlyf or the thing to abscond with her dad's wart. Also we get way too many shots of that wart. I do like the reveal the gremlin is made of wart remover.. and they got married in vegas. Good for them.

Goldfish Heaven: This one is the series actual pilot, with a slightly rougher style but I saw this one a lot as kid and love it dearly. So Loopy's goldfish dies and is flushe down the toilet. Being told this is goldfish heaven, she decides to travel there for closure, building an adorable goldfish suit. While a goldfish friend of her goldfish is a prick about it, her goldfish is fine with giving her closure and it's all very sweet. Also the design of goldfish heaven, essentially a giant fish tank is amazing as are the goldfish puppets. Great stuff.

Mother-Nature Bowl Off: Loopy's mom makes the mistake of telling her summer rain is just mother nature bowling, so Loopy goes ten rounds with her. I like the resolution: We know from the wraparound i'ts still raining so we assume Loopy looses.. but no she dosen't. Mother nature is just a sore looser. She's also kinda obnoxious making this my least favorite short of this batch, but it's still charming as usual. A meh life with loopy short is STILL a life with loopy short.

Mom's Mystery Casserole: Another faviorite of mine. Mom makes a weird cassarole every friday and after refusing to tell her kids what's in it, which I'm certain is against the Geneva Convention but whateves, Loopy sneaks into her moms cabinet and finds out it's fish sauce.. complete with a neat looking fish king inside. How she wins is also fun as the cans try to can her, only for Loopy to point out the fish sauce is terrible, the cans realize they have a bad rep and silence him

Revolutions Loopy Has Caused Count: 1

20,000 Leagues Under the Sofa: Larry looses his baseball in the cushions, and it turns out weird, cool looking molemen are smelting various things to power the earth's core. I just.. love the concept here.. as well as Loopy understandably shoving the ball in his face after he complains it's singed given she BARELY got it out from an incenerator. A solid end to a magical season

Promethus and Bob comes to us from Cote Zellers, who has a background in commericals, which tracks given P and B's short run times and simple premise: an alien came to earth in caveman times to teach a caveman how to do things from our modern society and presumibly his advaned one. He usually fails, often thanks to an asshole bastard butt monkey that's around. This is apparently his job.

Zellers pitched the idea to nick, though the original pitch was apparently much darker and involved Bob killing and eating promethus...

Yeah I didn't want to know that either but we're both stuck with that knoweldge. Nick liked the basic concept but asked him to tone it down.

Animation wise P and B is gorgeous, having beautiful claymation models with the two leads having just the best designs, Promethus having an emaciated, skinny look that feels utterly ailen while bob is more chonky and relatable. Like me. Monkey.. is a monkey.

P and B was amixed bag for me as the early shorts got pretty repettitive with only wheel standing out. However as I wrote this I found the later shorts.. are really damn funny. I enjoyed them at the time and it's clear Zellers realized they were getting sdamey and thus starts finding creative new ways to do the joke, with the presentation matching. This short went from a part of the episode I dreaded to a fun addition as anything else, and I look forward to seeing what these two doofuses have next.

Bowling: Okay admitely while i'm lukewarm on these shorts... even i'm not so stonehearted as to not love an alien teaching a caveman bowling. I'm not made of stone. I don't really remember this one but it gets a pass on the concept.

Wheel: This is a fun one as Prometheus instructs bob on the wheel and he naturally goofs on it. Clothes: Bob wears a vest.... it looks good on him and it's fun to see bob in a vest. That's all I got.

Music: Prometheus tries to teach Bob Music. This sure did happen.

Fishing: Prometheus teaches bob to fish. He eats for zero days.

Bridge: this is a fun one as it's less about "oh stupid caveman can't do people things", and more Prometheus simply mangles the lesson. He tries to teach Bob how to cross a bridge.. but uses a log, which isn't ideal for it and is less convent than bob just jumping to the other side. We also get a really fun bit of the two rolling on the long. Good stuff and what the series can be at it's best.

Shelter: This is another fun one as Promethus tries to teach bob to use a tent, wtih Bob trying to use shelter. Maybe I like these more than I thought. I love how both end up blowing away. The show really seems to work better when it's more character based, which yes both of them are silent but the puppets convey such energy and character.

Cooking: My second faviorite, Promethus tries to teach bob to cook.. and eventually gives up and just goofs around till his superior shows up and is an asshole about it. It's nice to both see WHY Prometheus is so uptight, he has to do this for work, and see him just.. have fun with bob instead of trying to force feed a lesson he's clearly not getting.

Kite: They fly a kite. That's about it.

Say it with me now They nervous, they nebbish, they small, and the Populars don't like 'em at all. But that's ok, life is sweet. They cool. They the Off-Beats...

The Off-Beats comes from Mo Willems who , out of the creators of these shorts is easily the most prollefic. He always loved animation, having drawn a cartoon a day while traveling the world, and making a successful name for himself on Seasame Street before making the Off-Beats for Nickelodeons. Starting out as "the Misfits" before the name was changed for legal reason, the Off-beats was originally a between commericals segment , something I remember as a kid, before becoming part of Ka-Blam!. Willems would go on to Cartoon Network making the short lived Sheep in the Big city, which I barely remember but do remember liking as a kid, and , to my shock, being the showrunner for Kids Next door's first four seasons. So yeah Mo was responsible for making one of my faviorite shows what it was, and then went on to do childrens books because he's a neat dude.

The Off Beats is essentially the early charlie brown specials mixed with some psychedelic minimalist backgrounds and some hope. It's not to say Peanuts lacks hope. As a huge fan of it, there's plenty of nice moments of kindness, camaraderie and snoopy's awkward teenage nephew

But the 60's era stuff Off-beats takes from had a nice heaping helping of

Charles Schultz did not pull punches at how cruel life, and especially kids would be: Charlie Brown rarely won, Linus was mocked for believing in the great pumpkin and patting birds on the head, Lucy once threw linus out for a period in the 70s, Peppermint Patty is deeply insecure. Even into the 90's there's a whole arc about Marcy's parents overly pressuring her. These kids went through it.

WIth the Off Beats while their still bullied by the populars, they have each other and have less brutal honesty with one another than the peanuts gang. Their just four pretty wholesome kids who happen to be kinda weird. WE have Betty Anne Bongo, a beatnik born thirty years too late (Played by Mischa Barton of all people), Tommy, a pretty mellow charlie brown looking kid who will snap at you at the drop of a hat. And he has a pretty sweet hat. Repunzil who has long hair, and the duo of August and September. August is a nerdy inventor kid who makes wacky inventions, and September is his dog, who replaces snoopy's whimsy and lack of awarness for anything going on with a dry wit and a desire to be left the hell alone, but a willigness to help in a pinch.

The Off Beats is a lot of fun. Granted as a peanuts fan, this is like catnip to me as it's a well done pastiche that gets what Schultz was going for but still makes it it's own, so i'm biased, but it's a well animated, charming mellow little piece unlike everything else. While the rest of the KaBlam! shorts are good, all of them have that manic 90's energy to them in some level. The Off-Beats is very much it's own weird thing and I wish it'd gotten it's own series, it's that good. it did get a valentine's special to add to my jumbly collection of KaBlam odds and ends I need to look at at some point after this retrosepctive, so that's nice.

The Robodog: September takes a day off so August decides to make hi m jealous with a robot dog that plays 4 ever. You can see where this is going

Okay not THAT far, but the dog does want to play and play an dplay, with August learning his lesson and September making the robot a ro-boy to play with. A charming if bizzare choice of start as it dosen't really.. introduce any other cast members of feature them.

Too Much Attention for September: This is a wholesome, fun little short. September just ants to take off a nap and blows off August to hang out in his flying machine. This ends up going badly as every other off beat gets getting in his face in teh way a kid would: betty anne wants him to "take it", Repunzil won't stop petting him and Tommy yells at him for not going bow wow. Thankfully his owner has a flying machine so we get a nice ending of September and August taking off into the sky.

Betty Anne's Glasses: The first one actually involving the populars. They cameo in Robodog but dont' really do anything there. Here their leader steals Betty Anne's glasses so we get hyjinks as they half assedly hide them. August also makes a device to find them but as it points out, is too chicken to actually confront the populars. Thankfully they all dress up like the president, easily my faviorite bit of the short as all September (making up the head) has to do is say he's from washington for them to buy it. The best of the best.

Surprising Shorts is any non main segment on KaBlam for season 1. I don't know if this holds for season 2 onward, but i'll likely be keeping the suprising shorts titlecard. These are the odds and ends, mostly pilots for shows. It's also one of the main reasons KaBlam is in copyright hell: see at least two shorts got picked up, one set, lava, was only leased out temproarily, and in general if an episode is missing from Paramount+ , it's usually due to one of these. Why they can't just edit the episode to remove the coming up things featuring them, I don't know.

Lava: A series of abstract shorts from french animator Fredrico Vitali. I.. don't have much to say about these. Their well animated but their also only 30 seconds and while this review has proven I love weird shit.. this is a bit much even for me with one short having a cat fly through space and then into the unvierse inside a dog's anus

Not bad, just not for me

Anemia and Iodine: My faviorite of these, it's a pilot for a story about two best friends: The chalky faced cat anemia and her.. whatever she is best friend iodine who along with Anemia's brother Dropsy go to an old house to find a cat ghost. Ther'es a really nice adam's family style quality with Anemia I love. The short oozes spooky charm, is fun and the twist ending of the cat they find being the ghost is all kinds of neat. The only thing I really don't like is Dropsy, who gets VERY grating despite the shorts runtime. Why Nick didn't pick this up, I really don't know.

Angela Anaconda: yes THAT angela anconda. This series getting picked up by Fox Kids is one of the main reasons you don't see it here. For those less familiar, Angela Anaconda is a slice of life sitcom using yearbook photos and clipart to tell the tales of her, angela and not nanette nanoir, Angela's smug arch enemy. I thought the series was fine as a kid, but these shorts ar ekinda rough> The art style isn't quite polished yet so it just looks offputting and it's mostly just Angela's habit of elaborate revnege fantasies on her enemies, from murdering nanette for getting her barred from the class picnic to fore marrying nanette to johnny abotti after Johnny picks nanette over her and gives her the valentine Angela made and okay maybe that last one's justifable homicide. Bobs Burgers would do this exact same plot better, but it's still not a bad pilot and gets the series across. Glad this one go tpicked up, not so glad nick apparently REALLY can't learn how to just edit these shorts out the way they did lava.

The Louie and Louie Show: This one has great leads, a chameleon named Louie (played by Jim Belushi) and Louie the hamster played by Billy West, who was nick's best boy at the time. It's a aweird duo but it works. the problem is the short.. just dosen't really work for me as the whole premise is the two want to be loved. That's it. The dog gets love but the family present just seems to neglect them and gets mad when , shockity shock, two neglected pets escape because they want attention. It's just way too mean spirited for me. Creator Gary Baseman WOULD go on to make Teachers Pet at least.. and also has a whole abstract art career so there's that.

So with that we've finally worked through the mountain of shorts for this season. But rather than leave it there i've decided in the spirit of the season finale for this season that for each of these reviews i'm proud to present

The Kablammy Awards

For these I'm picking the best short from each recurrnig series, the best of the various startling shorts, and the best short overall from the winners. It's just me.. which already makes it more reliable than the oscars. let's begin

Best Sniz and Fondue Short: Stuntbike Sniz. Second Hand Sniz was close, but this one just has so much goofy charm to it and that your the inspiration gag is an all timer.

Best Action League Now! Short: Testiomony of Terror just inches out Where Pidgeons dare. While I like WPD a lot.. Testimony of Terror just has so much clever carnage, a neat premise and a fun ending.

Best Life with Loopy Short: This was a hard one, with the Front Runners being Lunar Loopy, Mom's Mystery Cassarole and 20,000 Leagues under the sofa. But in the end I have to give it to Lunar Loopy for it's fun take on the " man in the moon, gorgeous visuals and wonderful little dance scene.

Prometheus and Bob: It's log , it's log it's big it's heavy it's wood. It's Log, it's Log it's better than bad it's good.

The Off-Beats: Betty-Ann's Glasses. All hail presdient September

Startling Shorts: Anemia and Iodine. It's not even close. None of the other shorts are horrible but none have this one's unique art style or charm.

Kablamiest Overall Short: It was down to Anemia and Iodine, Lunar Loopy and Betty Anne's glasses for this one but the winner issssss

Betty Anne's Glasses! Congrats. The president bit, as wellas how obviously bad the Populars are at hiding said glasses, wins this one the prize. Congrats off beats.

For now it's time to sign off kablmoids. There will be a look at season 2 next month, same kablam time, same kablam blog. Until next time, thanks for reading.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Fontaines D.C. Live Show Reivew: 10/9, The Salt Shed, Chicago

Photo by Zach Caddy

BY JORDAN MAINZER

It's clear that on Romance (XL), Fontaines D.C. are a changed band. The story behind their "bigger" sound and reach is well-known by now, the Dublin quintet ditching scene go-to Dan Carey for Simian Mobile Disco's James Ford to flesh out the ideas that started when they opened for Arctic Monkeys throughout the U.S. Taking inspiration from the hip-hop, R&B, and dance stalwarts of yesterday and today, the band members went their respective ways, reflected, experimented on their own, and then wrote and holed up in the studio together for months, at different locations. Knowing that they wanted to explore grandiose themes--life, death, and, yes, romance--beyond the confines of their native Ireland, it makes sense that Grian Chatten and company decided to break down any sonic barriers. And they've let us know every step of the way, from Romance lead single and industrial boom-bap banger "Starbuster", to album and current tour set opener "Romance", whose melodic vocals, chiming synths, and blasts of distortion present us with this new era of Fontaines D.C.

Photo by Zach Caddy

On Wednesday night at The Salt Shed, the band's reintroduction was as gradual as ever, as the members came out in bunches, building up "Romance" piece by piece, Conor Curley's guitar, Conor Deegan III's bass and Tom Coll's drums, Carlos O'Connell's keyboards, green strobe lights, and then Chatten's vocals. It took me the whole song to get used to not just how they sounded, but that there were more band members on stage than I expected, and how they looked. For one, Fontaines D.C. are touring with guitarist Cathal Mac Gabhann and multi-instrumentalist Chilli Jesson of Palma Violets. Moreover, multiple band members had dyed hair and wore Matrix-meets-Brat leather jackets and sunglasses. If you didn't know it before, it was clear this wasn't the same scrappy band who wrote Dogrel.

Photo by Zach Caddy

Throughout much of their set, Fontaines D.C. performed the songs that best emphasized their expanded sound. There was the post-grunge standout "Here's the Thing", replete with Chatten's unexpected falsetto, Curley's buzzing guitars, and Deegan III's menacing bass line. "Bug" sported acoustic guitars and whooshing synthesizers, shoegaze beauty "Sundowner" a gentle Curley on lead vocals. Just like on their previous albums, though, the songs that ended up being the live anthems were those where Chatten showed off his mighty pen. The loud-quiet-loud "Death Kink" takes its name from those who believe the idea that misery makes good art. "There's a certain kind of air in the smoke / Must be some amount of truth in the joke / For it to make you laugh, ha ha ha," Chatten sang, the audience laughing with him in unison. As a frontperson, Chatten spent most of his time rousing up the crowd, arms waving in the air like Craig Finn, or jittering around in circles reminiscent of Ian Curtis. The crowd ate it up; someone even tossed a blow-up doll over the barrier during "A Hero's Death".

Photo by Zach Caddy

Approaching the climax of their set, Fontaines D.C. made sure to get out of the way their clear-cut back catalog highlights: "Jackie Down the Line", "Big", and "Sha Sha Sha", the final preceded by a simple, "Free Palestine" from Chatten. Yet, I'm glad they gave prime real estate to Romance closer "Favourite", a stunning, glorious, reflective slice of jangle pop, the band playing it last before coming out for an encore. The song is, at once, hyper-specific and universal, perhaps most successfully exemplary of Romance's wide-reaching goals. During one verse, Chatten describes the type of hangover where your mind is running all over the place, thinking about how you might have had a good night, regretting some decisions, yearning for a simpler time when your immediate world was "bed radios and days spent playing football indoors," and nonetheless realizing that you were lucky not to experience the time "when they painted town with Thatcher." Anyone, Chatten posits, can feel nostalgic for a time while recognizing its ills.

Photo by Zach Caddy

That mental back-and-forth played out during the band's encore, too. "In The Modern World", played first, refers to a trip Chatten and Curley took, where they met another Irish traveler, who gave them a drug that numbed them to their surroundings and overall troubles. Its acoustic guitar line, Chatten's whispered rasp, orchestral synths, and layered vocals in the chorus certainly recall the Lana-esque faded L.A. glamor the band was going for. But the lasting sound of the night was "Starburster", a stream-of-consciousness-seeming rap inspired by Chatten having a panic attack in the St. Pancras tube station. The song is composed as if to surprise you around every corner, beginning with piano plinks, harmonic synths, a snapping snare drumline, and a chorus punctuated with Chatten's breathless gasps, replicated live by a sampled gurgle. "Starburster" is certainly one of Fontaines D.C.'s finest songs, and it will likely be played during every set for the rest of their career, but I feel like only on this specific tour can it close the night. If the band is trying to show that they've grown beyond the taut, literate punk blasts of their first three records, what better way than to unspool like nervous wrecks?

[precuredaily]

Movie Notes

Been a bit, hasn’t it? I’m still working on finalizing the movie reivew, but I figured since it’s been a month I should give you something to hold you over. I took hella notes for this movie, and I”m still working on compressing them down so it’s not another 20k word novella. But I kinda like these notes and don’t just want them to go to waste, so I”m going to do something new. I’m presenting my unedited notes for your reading pleasure. This may or may not become a regular thing, we’ll see, but enjoy this for now!

https://pastebin.com/JfBbpN3n

Also, do remember to check the status blog periodically as well, I try to keep most updates there so this blog is ONLY for actual reviews: https://pcd-status.tumblr.com

[honolulubelle]

Book Reivew: A Ho Ho Ho Beau Christmas by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff @mimijeanpamfiloff

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vlc

I know this software has been rated very very highly,

I think I've used it before, for whatever I'm going to mention, but then somehow I got distracted and went on to use something else, and just lately, I am back to appreciating it!!!

for eg. screen capture, I used to use another software to screencap my video, video that I'm watching, (ya, for other blogging/writing/reivew purpose, whatever you call it!)

and my PC is getting older and older, slower and slower, till I've to search other simpler way to do this, oh ya, same goes to creating gif, ie. video to gif...

I've been using ScreentoGif for a long time, as long as I'm using my windows PC,

and yes, I love the MacOS-only Giphy Capture, but as you can see, it's MacOS only!!!!!

I searched up and down, and failed,

then, I came back to vlc again, I thought... ah!!! I've been restricted by a pattern that I have created throughout the time...

I thought, to make gif from video, you play the video, get an overlay capture software to do the gif,

but then, there's video to gif conversion,

I've been restricted by my own thought, I thought, doing the overlay thing will be more straightfoward and faster, THAT!!! is if I've a fast and new PC, using ScreentoGif (it's a great software though!! but of couse, Giphy Capture is the best!) is too slow...

slow till, maybe I break it down to a few steps to create gif, will be faster!!!

then, I figure out how to do it, take "picture" is easy,

doing the gif thing it goes like that, again, my bad!!!! I've been using avidemux to cut my video, and now, I find using vlc is just soooooooooooooo convenient and fast!!!!! blindme!

I should have started using looooooooooooooooooong time ago, allllllllllllllllllllllllllll this while!!!

so, what I now do is, if it's a long video, then, I use vlc to record certain section, it'll be in .ts format,

with the .ts, I then go to ezgif to convert to gif...

if it'll be .mp4 it's better, cos, it can be played on the ezgif website while picking your start-end time...

but then, if the .ts file is a straightforward thing, no more editing need, ezgif instead, can convert it like a breeze!!!!

gosh!! I should have started using it loooooooooooooooong time ago, with my struggling slow PC...

and that, with ezgif, the gif I want, will be generated, better still is, I can resize on the fly, and make sure it's small enough to deliver the message, that's all, it doesn't have to be super clear HD form, anyway!!!!!