#and I've been dreaming of getting just one official merch just one at least... | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

beautifully-lumpy · 1 year ago

Text

the beautiful person's journal - #16: the collectible world of caddicarus review!

sooo....this is about 3 months late, i know. BUUUUUT i have much more free time now that it's summer, and i can sing this box's praises!

ever since i was a young caddicarus fan, i'd always wanted to own merch from him. however, being in a family that wasn't too fond of a 12/13-year-old watching youtubers who swear like sailors, i couldn't express my love for caddy, let alone ask for merch. however, now that i'm in my 20s, i was able to ask for and receive this wondrous blu ray box set for christmas...well, at least the idea that i'd be receiving the box at some point.

if you stay up to date on all the happenings in the caddicarus community, you may have heard about the nightmarish experiences people have had with pixel empire and the shipping of this box.

needless to say, i was among the lucky ones who received theirs in mid-march. pixel empire just seems unable to handle merch drops for million-sub youtubers - scott the woz fans are still waiting for their $100 merch boxes to ship.

but pixel empire woes aside...was this $100 blue ray box set worth the wait?

✨ absolutely! ✨

upon receiving this adorable ps1-shaped box laced with references - both visual and auditory - i was the most excited i had ever been in all my years as a beautiful person/lumpy germ! and the contents inside did not disappoint.

to this day, i still haven't used all the stickers yet. but the ones i have used currently live on my sketchbook...

the stickers have such pretty art by prominent comedic game reviewer thumbnail/branding artist kevin fagaragan. they're super high quality too! i love how we have an official sticker of the "good!" thumbs up guy now - that's the one surviving pre-2020 thing that made it to this box. speaking of which, the box includes very few references to pre-2020 caddicarus aside from the history video so if you're a veteran fan who hasn't watched/doesn't like the newer vids but still wants to get this, you're out of luck.

as shown in the pictures above, i've used the pins on my backpack! but during the time since i took that picture, the pins have moved to my beanie! it's now blazing hot where i am in the mid-south, so i'm obviously not wearing this out anymore lol, but anywhere i went when it was cooler outside, this beanie would be on my head, showing off my caddicarus and onward fan pride! just like the stickers, the pins are really high quality, much higher quality than the disney enamel pins and buttons i've had. the caddicarus ones stay on super tight!

and let's not forget the gorgeous poster that's on the top of this post!! i feel like it's a comedic game reviewer rite of passage to have a beautiful 80's-style poster designed by PE founder dylan west. pixel empire may tend to bite off more than they can chew but damn, do they have some talented folks.

and that sapphire ticket in the first pic? that's a $10 pixel empire gift card. it can't get you much on the site, but if you got the gold and platinum tickets, you got $50 and $100 respectively...and a 15/30 minute zoom call with caddy!! to this day we haven't seen any reports of gold or platinum tickets yet, strangely. but man, that would've been a dream come true for me.

the picture of jim by the sticker sheet is actually a scratch and sniff. and in true caddicarus fashion, he gave us fans the ability to smell his beard - which actually smells very nice! and on the back is a thank you note signed by the man himself!

but of course, that's not all there is to this box. the meat of this wondrous collectible is the blu ray - packaged in a jewel case with PS1-style boxart. it even comes with a "game" manual that features all kinds of references, and interviews from different people who have worked with caddy!

the disc itself resembles a UK PS1 demo disc. and when you pop it inside, it carries on that aesthetic, as the menus look and sound like old demo discs!

(on the right is the gif i pulled from the pixel empire page for a visual)

the root menu uses the actual music from UK demo discs, but the "press start", main features and bonus features menus use these beautiful, ethereal, supposedly original pieces that i adore so much. unfortunately, while the credits specify who did which pieces of art for the box and menus on the disc, they don't specify who composed the menu music, or if the music was taken from epidemic sound. i tried shazaming it and got nothing. i wish we knew who composed that beautiful music! :(

and now - let's take a look at the videos on the disc!

the first one i watched was "how did i get here, and why is it damp?", as i'm obviously a connoisseur of caddicarus history and i was interested to see how jim himself would recap it. and this is how i learned why jim unlisted all those private videos - sir toasty needed access to them so he could edit the video! this video was the shortest of all of the main features, only being around 40 or so minutes. and i loved it!

not only was it such a surreal experience watching a caddicarus blu ray on the big TV in the living room - as i said, this never could've happened when i was younger - but also, the video was a trip down memory lane and the ending actually made me tear up a bit. it's a reminder of how the caddicarus channel wasn't even supposed to keep going after the 2010s, and it was because of jim's determination that he was able to pull through and make it to 1 million subs.

after that i watched "the secretive world of filming stories", which was about a whole hour longer. it was basically caddy, cerys and olly going through different scenes of the caddicarus show's reboot, and telling the stories about how they were filmed. i adored this one too, as the history and production of the caddicarus show is (obviously) a huge special interest of mine!

then i watched the last main feature, which was "the precious world of caddy's PS1 collection"! this one was also around an hour and 40 minutes, and it was exactly what it said on the tin - caddy going through his PS1 collection and discussing it.

also as a sidenote, seeing jim standing in front of his shelves and talking, along with him bending down to grab two video games off the floor gave me flashbacks to season 10 caddicarus, as that was his exact filming setup and he would bend down to grab the slaughter and salvage guns during the intro...

while i loved this video, i will admit i didn't love it as much as the previous two, but that's pretty much just because i mostly love caddicarus for the comedy/production/history aspects rather than the video game aspect. however, i have seen caddicarus fans who only cared about the PS1 tour and not the history or filming stories vids. different needs for different fans!

and onto the bonus features...

the hidden block reunion podcast was so good!! for a caddicarus veteran like me who was around during the golden age of hidden block, it was so emotional seeing these boys together again, even though balrog wasn't there.

the battle between caddy and brutalmoose was like, a 30 second video. i won't say what it was, but oh my god it was the funniest shit ever.

the stanley's phrase of the week compilation was cute, but honestly any fan could've made that and put it on youtube. i don't get why it had to be a feature on the blu ray.

and finally...the credits!

this is where my biggest disappointment with the blu ray comes in. don't get me wrong, i am 100% grateful with what we got and i couldn't ask for anything more wondrous than this. but in advertisements for the box, there were a few scenes animated in a PS1 style that showed jim fighting different bosses, and the bosses were different characters he's faced throughout the caddicarus reboot. the back of the case states that there are "animated gameplay featurettes", implying that there are multiple animated shorts. however, the credits seem to be the only animated featurette on the disc, and they only showed those exact shots we saw on the advertisements, including a couple extras. the only other animated thing was the secret video on the "press start" menu, which was only a few seconds long. idk i just expected there to be much more drawn-out, fully-voice acted featurettes. they even went to the trouble to make 3D models for olly and caddy's family, and they were only used for a second in the credits. i wasn't the only person confused about this, as there were also others on reddit stumped on it. and it's sad bc i was really excited about that :(

but other than that...i wholeheartedly recommend this box to any die-hard caddicarus fan!! it's a piece of merch that none of us could've ever dreamed of years ago, let alone 8-10 months ago!!

#caddicarus #the beautiful person's journal #the BPJ #jim caddick #the caddicarus show #hidden block #hiddenblock

2 notes · View notes

so-i-grudgingly-joined-this-site · 4 months ago

Text

Okay, I have notifications again! So now I can see and respond to some really good comments I got here.

@orionsangel86 and @giganoodle what both of you are saying really gets to some of the roots of my dilemma. On the one hand, committing interpersonal violence is different than attempting to institute nationwide systemic violence the way JKR does, at least in terms of how many people are presumably hurt. On the other, the Neil Gaiman fandom ABSOLUTELY was (and, I think still is) toxically positive about Neil. If I couldn't feel comfortable critiquing his writing, there's no way in hell anyone could easily speak up about sexual assault. The fandom in general seems very set in having specific "right opinions" about both the text and the author, and anyone with any different interpretation or experience is shoved out quickly.

Like, I specifically cut out portions of my analysis essays due to concern that the fans would send hate over them. Well, more than I already got. Even now I don't think I could post those portions, even though they're valid literary analysis, but now for twofold reasons. Half the fans would still say "how dare I critique Neil" while the other half would say "how dare you engage with a work written by a rapist, even as critique or analysis." (In case anyone's wondering, it had to do with how I suspect his former time as a Scientologist affected certain themes in The Sandman, but bringing up his time in a cult seems still considered taboo.)

It's also confusing because I was a Neil fan incidentally and not primarily--I only looked into who he was after enjoying The Sandman and wanting background on who wrote it. A lot of tumblr seems to have been Neil fans primarily, looking into his works because they liked him. So like, while I'm disappointed, I'm not shocked and devastated and rushing to disavow everything the way a lot of this site expects me to be? It's just finding out another literature author is a crappy guy?

I guess on the upside, I've managed to enjoy his work pretty much without giving money to him. Library, used book sales, Netflix free trial, using my art skills to make my own "merch"... I wasn't even trying to avoid monetary support (just too broke to buy "official" stuff) but it worked out anyways and I guess I'll just continue that. I mean, these books did end up meaning a lot to me, regardless of who wrote them, as @geekyhistoriansunite points out. It got me to write an entire academic paper's worth for free after all, and my doll-making skills took an incredible leap after making the Dream, Death, Desire, and Delirium dolls.

Lastly, @lizajane2 you bring up an interesting point, and I'm wondering your thoughts. Dream also means a lot to me (see again: entire academic paper for free, specifically about him), but how do you reconcile that he's also clearly based on Neil? Because yeah, I've been wrestling with that. It's one thing for him to be crappy in canon, because that's what makes him a compelling character, but some of his traits now also come across as a bit of an... early confession from Neil. The Nada situation, for example, manages to look even worse than it already did.

Not gonna lie, I'm stuck on how to go forward with things like my Sandman dolls. Before, fans sent some nasty messages to me when I dared to criticize aspects of Neil Gaiman's *writing*-- nothing about the man's character itself, just the writing. How dare I say anything remotely negative about the internet's beloved author! Now that he's publicly... not a perfect person, I'm expected to drop all association with these books and characters that mean a lot to me, lest I be seen as endorsing a sex pest.

There's no winning, is there?

#vent #neil gaiman #fandom problems #fandom wank

53 notes · View notes

cartermarcian · 4 years ago

Text

4Kids Korner - Season 2 - Episode 3

I'm a bit late this week because I got caught up with work and school-related dread, but now I'm back to bring you more 4Kids products! This week we have an epic trifepic: Winx Club Magazine Issue one - the castle, Kirby Right Back at Ya - Ice Kirby (DVDouble-Shot) and Kirby Right Back at Ya - Kirby Comes to Cappy Town!

Let's start by getting the smallest one out of the way. Here's Kirby Right Back at Ya - Ice Kirby (2005)

There's something I oddly like about DVDouble-Shot. Starting In 2005, the DVDouble-Shot line was introduced featuring two-Episode DVDs of 4Kids most profitable shows as a way of promoting 4Kids TV. As for the consumer, the main selling point is that you could buy them for a low price, collect and possibly trade them with your friends, kind of like Pokémon cards. I like the idea of one kid saying to the other on the playground, "hey, wanna trade your Ninja Turtles for my YuGiOh?" How successful they were, I have no idea, but they're fun and easy to review on this show. Given their small portion size, practically every DVDouble-Shot is the same. This one had the episodes "The Chill Factor" and "DeDeDe's Snow Job," in accordance with the ice theme of the disc. It also features assorted promos for then-current and upcoming 4Kids shows identical to those seen in the 4Kids TV September demo disc (which I will hopefully review some time in the future.) Before we move on, though there's one little thing I want to point out about the box art. You can't see it in the photos I've provided, but the ice monster on the cover is far more pixelated than Kirby, if you look closely at it, so it appears to me that they lifted it right out of the episode and placed it on the cover. I guess that's just what happens when no official art of a character exists for your graphic designers to use...

Now that we have that one out of the way, let's talk about the stars of today's episode, which actually turned out to have much more historical value than most of the other stuff in my collection. So say hello to the Winx Club Magazine Premiere Issue, The Castle (2005)

This is a very special addition to my collection not only because it's part of what I consider to be 4Kids' absolute peak year, but since the book was presumably printed in January of 2005, it means this was one of the first pieces of of merchandise to feature the now-famous 4Kids TV logo. Heck it might have even been printed before then. As for the book itself, it's quite cute as it features everything an 8-11 year old girl wanting to be a hip and trendy 2000s teenager could want, and contains surprisingly few ads for Winx Club merch. And even more adorable, is the publisher's attempts to fit that description using words like "slammin'" in sentences. I call it a magazine, but it's really more dedicated to the comic included, "The Castle," which I would have read, but I needed to get some sleep the day I read it, so I skimmed the book's numerous activities, instead. But for those still interested, the comic is a retelling of Bloom's enrollment in Alfea, with original art that's pretty accurate to the actual show. But the book's real allure is the activities. Like the free trading card you'll see in the photo above. It even comes with a full-page description of what a trading card game is, making reference to YuGiOh in the process, which I thought was funny since 4Kids owned that, and also because it heavily implies that only boys play YuGiOh when the show itself has many female duelists. After that, you have a faux interview with Bloom taken from the perspective of a fellow Alfea Student. What I remember most clearly about that, is that Bloom says she listens to top 40's, which made me think "man, she's got some trash music taste," even though I, myself have said on multiple occasions off of tumblr that I listen to basically everything. Also included on the magazine are a paper fortune-telling toy, a best friend diary which includes a "secret crush" slot to fill in, a page for writing down predictions about the reader's future, and even a personality test which assigns your traits to a type of flower, as suggested by Flora on the page. The funny thing about this is that one question asks for the reader's favorite kind of movie, and one of the options is "anime everything," which I thought was funny since anime was just starting to get big at that time in America, and the online anime community was just starting to grow. Finally, on the last page, probably the most creative of all, is a step-by-step slumber party plan by Musa, which details inviting everyone over, having them show up dressed as their favorite popstar (like Brittany Spears, for example) and bring their favorite CD from said popstar, then taking turns playing them and talking about them. It sounds quite fun, and it made me smile imagining all the little kids who tried this. That's exactly what I think is awesome about children's entertainment: it makes them happy and builds their imagination. So that's the Winx Club Magazine, a really good buy, but I must admit they used the same art of the girls more than once on a few occasions, and also wrote in a plot hole in the interview with Bloom, where she says she discovered her powers as a child, but in the show she unlocks them at her current age when saving Stella from the first monsters of the series. So it may have a couple flukes, but still quite enjoyable.

And last, but never least, it's time for Kirby Right Back at Ya: Kirby Comes to Dream Land (2002)

This one is also historically significant for two reasons. One is that it was the very first release of one of the more famous non-Pokémon/YuGiOh shows 4Kids had to offer, but it also played a part in promoting the very launch of the Fox Box, as you'll see on the box art. This disc may only have the first three episodes of the show, but it super makes up for it with a plethora of special features, more than any of the DVDs I currently own, and that they strangely enough don't tell you about on the box. And speaking of the box, though you might not see it, the episode descriptions on the back are written entirely in comic sans. Yeah, it's clear to see 4Kids wasn't quite as sharp as they would be in the next few years... and the DVD menus are also written entirely in this font. But that doesn't take away from the outstanding value. much like the Fright to the Finish DVD, this one's special features are split between two menus. For this one, there's "More Kirby" and "Added Attractions," which is the far superior one, but more on that in a minute. The More Kirby menu features a character gallary telling you about the main cast, set to music from the show. Then there's "Kirbyoke," which is there to teach the kids the words to the theme song. And finally, we have a preview for the next DVD in the series, which at that point hadn't a proper name, so Mike Pollock's voice just refers to it as "Kirby Right Back at Ya Volume 2." Then, in the "Added Attractions" menu, we have a promo for Cubix - Robots for Everyone's first DVD release, a short promo for the newly-launched FoxBox.TV website, and the star of this review by far, "What's Inside The Fox Box?!" This incredible 14 minute long promo (which you can find on Youtube, by the way,) previews every single show in the Fox Box's initial lineup as a way of hyping up the network for it's September 2002 launch. Well, kind of... You see, 4Kids made multi-minute promos for their own productions, complete with plot synopses by Mike Pollock and others and theme songs for the shows. Meanwhile, Stargate Infinity, a third-party show, only got a promo featuring still images of the main cast, a paper-thin explanation of the plot and no opening, all clocking in at under a minute. So, yeah, pretty lame move on 4Kids part, but at least we get to see HD footage of 4Kids lost Ultraman Tiga dub. Ultimately, it's a really fun promo from 4Kids' very beginnings as a dedicated children's entertainment company, even though it uses some uncut clips of guns in Fighting Foodons since the dub wasn't finished at that point. One last thing to point out: the promo for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which hadn't even started production at the time,) features an unused theme song demo for the series which also made it's way onto the illusive Fox Box CD. So there you have it, one of the DVDs that started it all. Thanks for reading about it, as well as my other items this week. I will be back with more next week, so hang in there, and I'll see you all next time. Take care!

#4Kids #4Kids TV #4Kids Anime #4Kids Dub #4Kids Entertainment #Kirby #Kirby Right Back at Ya #Kirby of the Stars #Winx Club #Books #Fox Box #DVDs #Cartoons

11 notes · View notes