#because toon was short for cartoon

[existennialmemes]

Trying to channel my rage and anguish into Silliness so the despair does not consume me, and if I am successful I will have functionally transformed myself into an IRL Looney Tune.

[catboymoments]

Referring to the ask that claims that your angel dust redesign when he isn’t dancing (that’s what the outfit is right?) isn’t feminine enough,

I don’t dress feminine all that much anymore but if I had the confidence I would definitely wear something like Angel dust in your redesign (I’m afab for reference and I dislike that people think not super revealing clothes/darker color pallet means it’s unfeminine and vice versa) idk if that makes sense, also in general I love your redesigns of the cast so far overall they look super unique and I love your world building around them

THANK YOU!!! I was kind of going for like. A “slutty” version of what men from his time would wear? While yes I think when he was alive he would’ve leaned more into the full suit mafioso look, since being in hell he’s become more of a, for lack of a better word, manwhore.

He’s got the popped open collar, the short shorts, and recently I’ve started drawing his gartered high heeled boots with some fishnet tights. He wears makeup, his messy eyelashes accentuated by the classic “Jessica rabbit” purple shiny eyelids that a lot of femme fatale toons had back in the day! But he still looks put together and vintage!

I made his body yellowed instead of stark white to go with a “nicotine yellow/washed up” feeling and put more emphasis on how he’s not from a recent decade and has kind of rotted his body from substance abuse.

The “toon” angle comes from him being from the 40’s yes, but also because he’s from New York City, a prime hub of media and new age movies. Looney tunes were taking off, wartime cartoons were being shown, etc etc, but there’s a deeper meaning to it too. It’s part of his punishment. Hes never going to be taken seriously no matter how much he wishes it, he’s either an object for someone else or something to laugh at. He’s a toy. A joke. A toon.

[theriverdraws]

100k VIEWS!!! WOOO!!

Not my first or second video to reach this number, but definitely the one im most proud of.

Gonna ramble about my thoughts while making this, because I think about it a lot:

- It has been a couple of years since I started it (see desc.), but from what I remember I had this idea because this song popped up on my feed, and I really liked it (had not listened to the eng version before), looped it for a while, and then I was like "...wait this sounds like the warners doesn't it" and it all escalated from there.

- I needed them to kidnap someone, and I think I chose mickey because I had recently made an animaniacs & mickey mouse video and I really liked it, so I just chose to torment him again lmao.

Im actually realizing now that having him be the one kidnapped makes even more sense. In the song, it's halloween gremlins kidnapping santa claus - so the equivalent of WB gremlins kidnapped Mickey Mouse the disney mascot, is pretty perfect. Would like to say this was the plan since the beginning but that would be a lie smdjks.

- I really like the Animaniacs, "Who Killed Roger Rabbit?", and "Looney tunes back in action" takes on a "cartoons living with humans" universe, so in this video it's kinda of a mixture of all three of these - hence toon town (in my head it's mainly disney cartoons that live there, however the really big stars probably got their own houses in human cities I'd imagine). Mickey himself then follows the logic of his personality just being how he was drawn. He's just an average guy. Probably got nicer over the years since bro's personality ended up turning into a slice of bread by Disney, because he had to be the face of the company. My favorite version of Mickey is the one on the Mickey Mouse shorts though, so you can imagine this specific version of him on this video (I know it doesnt look like it in the beginning, I did not know how to draw mickey a couple years ago dnjdjs). In this video Mickey isn't really as evil as the company, he's just the mascot stuck with them. I would say bro is just a doormat. He wouldn't agree with all of their actions, but I dont even think he would acknowledge most of them, make a lot of excuses for them probably. Overrall he's like, fine.

- I needed a CEO to be Oogie Boogie because well.. Who would be better for it?? When I started this 2 years ago, I was deciding between Plotz and Rita (reboot CEO), I was gonna choose her because the Warners were scared of her to some extent, and I can't really imagine them being scared of Plotz. But this year, having picked this video back up, I am filled with great amouns of rage. Therefore, Zazza the clown was born (fuck you David).

- The lore is Zazza the clown sat down on a big chair one day, and people in suits made him CEO. He is an annoying, evil, money grubbing bastard. But also very stupid, so he's not that scary except when he's doing his bad ideas.

- The Warners aren't scared of him though, they are mainly doing this for fun because annoying Disney and the rat would be funny. However, going a bit deeper, they do crave praise and affection from those who hate him (aka the CEO, the entire company, any person with a brain that's around them at all times), so they are also doing this for those reasons. In the original show, there's even an episode where Plotz is not the CEO anymore, and they managed to get him back because they missed him yelling at them (probably not a direct quote, but it was something like that). The children are not well snjene. But yeah they're not taking sides nor scared, they're just doing whatever they want and maybe getting a fist bump out of it. (They are not going to get anything).

- Had to hit them with the PTSD about getting locked in a tower though jsjske, it had to match the lyrics.

- nsjsk actually the lyrics probably make the Warners sound more evil than what I picture them (though I do see them as really big menaces). To be fair, in Nightmare Before Christmas, Lock Shock and Barrel sing this whole song about torturing Santa Claus, only to just put a bag on him and give it to Jack directly. That's probably all that the Warners are gonna do in the end, maybe play with him for a bit but eh. (WB will not pay for psychological damages).

- I didn't plan a motive as to why the clown wants Mickey. Uhhhhh blackmail? Idk, feel free to come up with a reason.

- I always drew the Warners with fangs, you can see my other videos and old fanart on Tumblr. When the reboot was still airing, I drew like it looking like canine teeth, but originally I really liked drawing the cartoonish fangs like you see here, and recently I decided to start doing that again.

I think that's it! Probably a lot of grammatical mistakes (it's 5:40 AM), but I'm not editing this sjkeje. All I have left to say is I GOT TWO COMMENTS ABOUT THIS BEING A 18+ VIDEO, GUYS WATCH THE VIDEO BEFORE COMMENTTING WDYMMMM. THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THUMBNAIL, YOUR BRAIN IS JUST ROTTING.

[bendyredrawn]

Ok so I have a draft for the pre game events in order, I thought I’d share it even tho some stuff might change a lil;

‘Sillyvision studios’ is founded in 1929 by Henry and Joey

Bendy’s first debut takes place during the same year, in the episode “The Dancing Demon”

Episode is a hit amongst audiences, production kicks off and the studio goes from around 4 employees to over 20

1929-1932 are the studio’s ‘golden era’. Bendy cartoons are at the peak of popularity and financially, the studio is doing great

1932 onwards: Bendy cartoons are being overshadowed by competing studios (eg: Disney) and the Great Depression is having a toll on the studios economic status. Production resumes but with far less episodes being released and the amount of employees slowly decreasing.

Joey notices this issue and tries to come up with a way to draw the public’s attention back to the bendy cartoons. Long story short he gets into some cult business. Henry leaves the studio around this time when he notices that joeys going a little crazy with this idea of his.

1932-1934: Bendy cult is responsible for killing some employees for their rituals, although the public is unaware of their existence or the killings as killings were falsely labeled as ‘disappearances’ and members of the cult still acted like normal citizens/employees when not partaking in rituals. The Employees who were killed by cult will find themselves reborn in the toon realm (Eg: Susie and Norman)

1934: Joey manages to bring ‘bendy’ to life. He organizes an event at a large nearby theater to show bendy to the public, Joeys plan to bring people’s attention back worked as headlines and public discourse spread.

Event takes place, Joey realizes that something is off about bendy. (Writing is kinda dookie but u can get the idea I have in my head)

After this event, Joey visits henry and asks him for a book he lended to him that contained details about the curse (Henry has no knowledge of anything and gives it to him). This curse will keep bendy trapped in the toon realm unless broken.

Joey manages to banish bendy to the toon realm, and burns the book afterwards, however this leads to his demise as the cult soon find out about what happened and murder him for betraying them.

Few days later, Investigation takes place after Joey is reported missing. They don’t find his body and the cult is nowhere to be seen. This is because they’ve hid away in the toon realm and taken his body with them.

After this event, studio is completely abandoned, and has become something of local folklore. Twisted bendy corrupts any bendy episodes that were still airing and some of those archived on film reels. Filling them with cryptic messages and disturbing imagery.

One day, bendy tells the cult that he wishes to break the curse and enter the real world so that he can punish humanity for giving him life, but doesn’t know how

One of the cult members tells him that he remembers seeing Joey asking Henry for a book before the event happened, he suggests that he might be able to break the curse.

One day, Henry receives a letter supposedly from Joey, although this is falsely written by the cult to trick him to come and find him at the studio.

Game happens

Again this is not completely final and a bit simplified, so things are open to change, hopefully u guys like it so far and I’m super open to suggestions :] 🖋

[walnutcookie]

I'm sorry but for your Gen2 au (which is very silly might I add, pls make more for me to feast upon /silly) all I can imagine is the OG's pulling up and everyone being in utter shock as the toon people from 20 yrs ago most likely assumed to be fucking dead just showing up randomly. I feel as though this would be terrifying for the employees and saddening to the old toons who just randomly found out they were not only abandoned but fuckin replaced bro </3 Erm anyways, sorry for my dumb little ramble in ur inbox </3 -🎩⭐

GAVAJSVJSA THIS IS TRUE. Honestly though for one i dont think that the employees would notice immediately...

kind of a scuffed explanation, i may scrap it because its a bit of a stretch (to me at least) but heres the thing: the new toons arent made of real ichor, BUT for now im going to say that gardenview still wanted to continue pulling ichor from underground and also from their old facility in hopes that they can slowly build up their supply and recreate their success one day. the gen2 toons are made of false ichor which is highly inefficient (more on that in another post) so they dont use it for the toons i think theyre just stockpiling it

HOWEVER since the old facility is flooded with the stuff and thats where they were getting ichor to begin with they made a reaaaally long tunnel (since they had to distance themselves from the original location) from the old gardenview to the new one... Intended just for pipes and some poor unlucky employee whos hired to do routine matenince on said pipes. a few golf carts on both ends to speed things up and extras in case any of them broke down so that employees wouldnt get trapped in there and have to walk. Almost everything was done underground around the facility itself since they wanted to minimize all risk of more people getting killed by the gen1 toons who were still all twisted,, the few enterances they had to make into the building were done very carefully, disguised with the surroundings, and locked so that no twisted would get through.

When they did finally get un-twisted (AGH again i will elaborate in another post because i have ideas on this now) the gen1 toons had their minds cleared and thus they realized that some parts of the facility looked a little fishy and wound up finding the enterances to the new gardenview. Split everyone up on a few golf carts, one person holding the wheel and one on the pedal because theyre short with everyone else clinging on for dear life and theyre OUTTA THERE!!!

If they were to be spotted by the company at any point, theyd be killed. If they even knew the gen1 toons were ALIVE itd be dangerous. the gen1 toons dont know this as theyre escaping ofc but i needed to find a way where they wouldnt get immediately screwed because a crowd of 20 brightly colored cartoon characters walking through new york isnt exactly discreet LOL

ANYWAYS all thats to say once they finally get to the new facility, yes, the gen2 toons are shocked, but they didnt even know they werent the first ones (except maybe watson because hes a nosy little bugger but even then its probably just something he heard briefly mentioned and it never got elaborated upon). They all still realized "Oh Shit if we dont do anything gardenviews gonna fucking kill them" so they did their best to help the gen1ers hide from the employees GVDLFNGLG

There was once or twice where an employee caught one of the gen1 toons but also the company spent WAY too much time and money keeping that whole incident under wraps and trying to wipe the entire old facility's existence off the face of the planet sooo a lot of the employees dont even recognize the toons. Weren't born in that generation or just never heard of them. they just see this funny looking fish bowl and think "huh when did they make another one"

that almost hurts even more though </3 not only were they replaced but they werent missed. Nobody is remembering them fondly, wondering where they are, worrying for them, wishing they were back... theyve just been replaced with all these seemingly perfect toons and they almost died 20 times each just to see that theres new people living their lives and living them Better

TYSM ANON!!!! <333 Never worry about rambling in my askbox i enjoy it X] (especially when its about my own au. yknow GBXKFBFK)

[emiplayzmc]

✨️ Deleted Scenes ✨️

Sooo, in the 'Never Be Alone Again' fic, there were a few scenes that I liked a lot that ended up getting scrapped / deleted hjgfss. Made a couple doodles and a bit of writing for the deleted scenes!

This was one of the scenes that I mentioned that was giving me trouble! It was just after the final machine was completed and I was having trouble writing the chase sequence - I ended up going to Reddit threads for writing advice, and then scrapped the scene altogether.

Overall, it was breaking the pacing and believability to have Gigi grab Rodger here and THEN having him get up and run from Glisten. Given the speed of Glisten, he would not have had more than two seconds to try and run away before Glisten ended up pouncing on him, and I wanted the confrontation to be in view of the elevator and closer to when it closes. Plus it gave me a little bit of Chekov's Gun with Boxten!

So for this, it wasn't just one scene, but things I was trying to sprinkle in through the whole fic. I know I've mentioned before that I HC Rodger as emoting a lot more expressively in both his mannerisms and also in literal cartoon emotes, and then if he truly gets overwhelmed, he'll end up going mute and letting his natural physical expressiveness do the talking until his mind calms down (selectively mute Rodger HC :)). Truthfully I really wanted a scene where Glisten would get to basically monologue lol.

Unfortunately, whenever I kept rereading wherever this popped up, it just... wasn't working as much as I wanted to, and kept feeling unnecessary and pushed in. Eventually I scrapped the emotes and the idea of him getting overwhelmed in the epilogue, but I imagine Glisten would've tried to comfort him a little when he realised what was happening before the monologue started. Thankfully (or unfortunately given how you see it) he did actually get to have most of the dialogue in the epilogue, I just kept Rodger's dialogue short because of him LITERALLY *JUST* waking up from almost dying and trying to process everything.

♤~~♡~~♤

Scrapped Epilogue Dialogue (Reason: Out of Character, didn't fit with established dialogue)

<Pink text is what's already in the fic. Plaintext is what was scrapped>

"and I have Toodles to take care of, and- and everyone is relying on me to fix this mess, and it isn't even a definite that we'll find my equipment quickly!! I can’t just accept this and start planning for the long term!”

“You can because you are STUCK here.” Glisten hisses out, leaning closely to Rodger again even as the other rears back. "You know, none of them came out of the elevator when you were stalled to help."

The mirror's eye has reddened again as he speaks, his tone somewhere between desperate and crazed.

"They just *stood there.* Watching and panicking as if they couldn't do a thing. The most they did was throw a *wrench* into me. Not even when you were five feet away being attacked by Boxten. They had a few seconds. They could have run out."

The way Glisten says that so vehemently, his fingertips digging into the couch cushion, is unsettling to hear. Rodger had honestly never heard him speak so bitterly about something.

"What are you implying he-"

"What I'm implying should be obvious, Detective."

Glisten gives Rodger a long look, almost as if looking through him at something else.

"They left you. They left us," Glisten whispers, "You- you said Vee didn't trust me, and- you know she can make some rash decisions, maybe- maybe she made them stay back because there was so little time left..."

A small, delirious giggle emits from the mirror, sending a chill up Rodger's spine as the detective's eye darts around for anything he could use to...

To do what?

I don't know.

You can't hurt him.

I know.

You can't outrun him.

I know.

So what would you do if he starts getting out of control again?

I don't know.

"And- and I don't *blame* her, not risking another Toon to save you, and it's- it's my fault that that decision had to happen in the first place, my fault, if you'd been a few seconds earlier, you'd-" ...

♤~~♡~~♤

Aaaand there's some deleted / scrapped bits! Some bits could probably have been executed if it wasn't already so long and I knew how to fix them sounding boring or non-believable, but then there were some bits that just didn't fit with the character personas already established. Deleted scenes my beloved <3

[hotvintagepoll]

Joe E. Brown (Some Like It Hot)—Where to begin? Despite from all appearances being perfectly average sized, his Little Guy energy is off the charts. His rubber face leaves Jim Carrey's in an exaggerated Looney Toons-style dust cloud. He was an actual cartoon character on several occasions. His calling card was just randomly SCREAMING. He was 100% down to marry Jack Lemmon. I could go on.

Brigitte Helm (Metropolis)— She’s a robot. She’s a communist revolutionary. She’s really bad at winking. She dances in the most awkward way I’ve ever seen in my life. She has emo eyeliner. What more could you want.

James Cagney (Yankee Doodle Dandy, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Public Enemy, White Heat, The Strawberry Blonde)—James Cagney is such a scrungler. He could dance, he could sing, he embodied the gangster role, he was a short king, he had curly hair, what more could you possibly want?? Something about his face just feels so Looney Toons to me. He's like a little bug and I'm observing him through my magnifying glass. I'm obsessed with his hair and his scrunging demeanor!!! He's the most guy to me of all time. I tried to draw him once and completely failed. You could crumple him up like a tissue and watch him float away in the breeze.

This is round 3 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you’re confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Joe E. Brown:

The open-mouthed smile where he doesn't show his teeth automatically catapults to him to the top of my scrungly guy list, and that's without the absolute self-satisfaction and rapscallion energy of the final scene in Some Like It Hot. But come on. Look at him. THAT is a scrungly little guy. You've got to believe me

Brigitte Helm:

[Editor’s note for video: tw for slave imagery, eyeball horror, freaky statues, death references—generally just go forth with caution if you’re sensitive to horror/horror adjacent imagery.]

James Cagney:

Whaddya mean I've gotta SUBMIT Cagney? You look up scrungly in the dictionary and there's a picture of him RIGHT THERE. He IS the scrungle. -SHORT KING 5'4 3/4 (1.65m) I could put him in my pocket -When he rolls down his car window (in Mayor of Hell) sticks his head out and makes some snarky comment (which I didn't hear because I was way too distracted) it's like struck by lightning, let me tell you -His hair is so wavy and sometimes it falls over his forehead and then I die a little -He plays The Public Enemy number one, everyone thinks of this as "the one with the grapefruit scene" but it is SO SO much more than that, it's also the one where he wears little striped pajamas -Multilingual (Yes, I'm the same person who submitted EGR and listed this earlier. Yes, this is a big thing for me.) He spoke Yiddish, guys and you can hear him speak it in a movie (Taxi) AND when the Warner Bros. tried to discuss him without him knowing they used Yiddish not realizing he'd understand everything -He talks so fast. Like. Staccatto. It's so fascinating -Loved animals & owned CHOW CHOWS (that's a very scrungly dog, c'mon) -Plays Bottom in Midsummer Night's Dream, that's the guy who gets turned into a DONKEY, nobody else could've played it like he did -Messed with Warner Bros. all the time, threatened to quit, told them he was going to go be a doctor instead -He does this little nose scrunch thing oh my god -Boy Meets Girl is a supremely underrated screw ball comedy and he has lots of silly little outfits in it and acts ridiculous the entire time -Was fascinated by farming and just puttered around on his tractor, like he's just a little guy! -There's a movie where he has a silly little mustache (I haven't seen it yet though) -They've dressed him up as bellhops, sailorsn cowboys and itty bitty gangsters [in movies] and frankly that should be enough -His first show biz job was a female dancer on the chorus line

Fanvid

A second fanvid

A third fanvid

He is the SCRUNGLIEST of gangsters, it’s the role that made him famous, and by god that’s for good reason. He also plays a peculiar little guy in musicals and occasionally westerns, all with a particular flavor of scruffy city rat energy that you can’t help but adore!  

[ducktoonsfanart]

Mickey and friends celebrate Christmas - Mickey's Once Upon A Christmas - Mickey and Minnie Mouse with their children - Donald and Daisy Duck with their children - Goofy as Santa Claus with his son - Happy 25th Anniversary of Mickey's Once Upon A Christmas - Mouseverse, Duckverse and Goofyverse - Classic Disney - Merry Christmas!

Finally, I have a collection of drawings from three aspects of one of my favorite Christmas specials, the 25th anniversary of Mickey's Once Upon A Christmas, since the film was shown at the end of 1999. I'm uploading these drawings that I drew throughout the year again, but this time all together since today is December 25th, or Christmas, one of the greatest Christian holidays.

The first drawing I drew was redraw of my favorite scenes from Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmas from “Stuck on Christmas” (that story was inspired from “Christmas Every Day” by William Dean Howells) where Donald, Daisy and Donald’s nephews hug like a real family and it’s really a nice family scene for me. So I drew this as a redraw scene, just with Donald Duck, his girlfriend, future wife Daisy and his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie celebrating their holidays.

The second drawing is also a redraw of Mickey and Minnie Mouse based on Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmas movie where they really looked like a loving couple. Still, it’s nothing without children, so I added Mickey’s nephews Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse (Morty is in a red hoodie jacket, while Ferdie is in a blue hoodie jacket) as well as Minnie’s nieces Millie and Melody (Millie is in a purple outfit, while Melody is in some green - blue clothes). Yes, Milie and Melody appeared in Minnie’s Bow Toons (although I personally don’t like such baby series, it’s still good that Minnie got her nieces, otherwise she has them, but only one in the comics), while Morty (Mortie) and Ferdie appeared in the classic shorts and in comics, though not as often. I wish somehow they appeared a little more often with Mickey and Minnie Mouse and more people knew about the Mickey Mouse comics where he has more personality than he does in the cartoons. Especially since Steamboat Willie came out as public domain.

Of course, I drew in my own ways, using inspiration from other drawings. Yes, and I drew both Mickey’s nephews and Minnie’s nieces as preteens and based on the comics, as if they were wearing a modern version of the clothes. 

And the third drawing I did recently is related to Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmas and this is my third part from the special and one of my favorite Disney Christmas specials. Of course, I can’t ignore this, because in my opinion, next to the special with Donald and his nephews, this is my favorite part because it’s about Goofy and his son Max from the segment “A Very Goofy Christmas”. Max, as a little boy, sent a letter to Santa Claus and expects a gift from him, but Pete still assures him that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, so Max loses faith in him and in his father. In the end, when they stop the burglar, Santa Claus (Goofy to be exact) appears and assures Max that Santa Claus really does exist, and then Max disguises himself as Santa Claus. So, in connection with this, I drew Goofy as Santa Claus approaching his son Max and giving him a teddy bear, and Max, all happy, expects a big gift that he can’t resist, which is to have the best father in the world, even though he’s very clumsy.

And everyone celebrates Christmas together!

If you are a fan of these characters and if you like these drawings, feel free to like and reblog this! Just don't copy my ideas without mentioning me, thanks! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone and a happy 25th anniversary of Mickey's Once Upon A Christmas!

[newgabeorder]

Toon Time Theater Brings You U-PICK Poll No.7!

Salutations, anime fans. This is Gabriel Ramos, DJ and live-streamer of Toon Time Theater. I heard that the upcoming UZUMAKI will have Saturday premieres on Toonami, but I have a poll up my sleeve. I am concerned about what to live-stream on Saturday mornings. You have these outcomes to vote for, and the top result determines tomorrow's lineups, also affecting the weekends following it.

Saturday morning UZUMAKI (lag)

Sunday morning UZUMAKI (no lag)

EDEN

THE KING OF FIGHTERS: ANOTHER DAY

.hack//Liminality (may pre-empt a program)

CASTLEVANIA (Season 1)

Pokémon Origins

LARRYBOY: The Cartoon Adventures (E/I)

You have until September 27 at 2 PM PDT to make your choices. When the time comes, I will end the T3 Express peepshow and review the poll results and reveal the lineups before I live-stream SAILOR MOON.

If most of you vote for Sunday morning UZUMAKI, then I will end T3 Express after the poll and move most of its programming to the Saturday Morning Animation Cram Session (More One Night for Japanese late-night viewers). Not only that, I will introduce T3 Essentials, the Sunday morning replacement for T3 Express that focuses on cartoons which I deem "essential" to my weekend cartoon block live-streams. Most of the programs will be carried over from the previous SMACS (M1N) lineups, giving (American and Canadian) Sunday morning viewers a short-but-satisfying lineup just in case they miss out on the Saturday morning lineup.

---

Anime fans, if this is your first time seeing this post, this is because I run a series of weekend anime blocks on the New Gabe Order Twitch channel, Toon Time Theater. My purpose of Toon Time Theater is to showcase the latest and greatest of action-packed animation on Saturday mornings at a time where modern Saturday morning cartoon blocks on FCC-controlled over-the-air TV stations no longer exist in today's world.

[cartoon-buffoon]

Going back to my love for cartoons for a bit here: random idea/ramble regarding Ortensia and sort of epic Mickey as a whole.

In Epic Mickey there's of course the drama regarding the heart and fame, yadda yadda you get it. Now of course Oswald was never truly forgotten however they still use the term forgotten because truth be told he didn't really have any fans before Epic Mickey. Like sure people knew of him, of course they did, he's a big part of animation history and his loss lead to Ub and Walt making Mickey Mouse. The reason why he was labelled as "forgotten" despite never truly being forgotten is actually brought up in the EM comics tales of wasteland comics

It's acknowledged people DO remember him but because Oswald has very little actual character in the classic shorts he was reduced to nothing more than "the first Disney Mascot!" (Julius was a side character in the Alice Comedies he does not count, shush) but back to what I was saying: this actually does a good job explaining that Wastelands' label of being "forgotten" is sort of loose and means just they don't have any actual fans because before Epic Mickey Oswald truly didn't have any fans, what was there to be a fan of? I thought of this recently because it brings up an interesting dilemma with characters in the EM universe. Like this is getting meta here but logically because of EM's existence Oswald does have proper fans now, he would logically be out of wasteland and he would have a heart. Wanna know who wouldn't though? Ortensia and the bunny kids

Like considering we never got an EM 3 with a playable Ortensia which would probably have her story actually give her some character and depth she is still kinda forgotten? Like yeah we do have bits and pieces of what she's like but sadly nothing really in depth? Like yes, she does have fans and she's certainly not forgotten but compared to Oswald who has depth she never got proper screentime to shine. Setting aside headcanons and fan made media, what do we have of Ortensia? We have comics from Tales of Wasteland, we have the one Christmas comic, and of course the knowledge of her status in EM as the queen of Wasteland implying she is married to Oswald. Comparing her to Oswald once more she has basically nothing of substantial character other than "she's Oswald's wife who is sweet but also logical", we don't see much outside of that and it's disappointing, same goes for the bunny kids who we have literally nothing of. We know of them, we know there's a singular daughter amongst the 419 boys, that's about it.

Anyways I thought of this in the first place because there's probably a very tragic truth that while Oswald would now be able to leave wasteland his wife and kids wouldn't. They're still stuck there being forgotten because we, the audience, have nothing really to be fans of other than shallow details of who they are. There's very little separating Ortensia from her appearance in the classic shorts which once again—holy fuck I'm sad we didn't get an EM3 the concept art of her is awesome. But ya know with that being said this sort of dynamic with Oswald now having a heart makes for the very sweet idea that he is now capable of leaving wasteland, but he doesn't. I imagine Oswald wouldn't, he wouldn't abandon his friends or family and currently continues to reside as a ruler choosing to use his ability to travel to and fro purely to help the denizens of wasteland. He remembers where he came from and he knows where his family is and wouldn't want to have it any other way.

(also the little prick has his imagery plastered everywhere, despite having a heart you cannot tell me he would choose to live in toon town where other toons probably don't care about him, he loves to be the center of attention lmao)

[ducktracy]

Do you think the best plot twist from a looney toons cartoons/movies was the ending from "Duck-Amuk", or is there a better plot twist then that?

what i wouldn't GIVE to be able to see Duck Amuck with fresh eyes again!! i love Duck Amuck a lot but it's unfortunately one of those Chuck Jones shorts where i've been exposed to it so much that the twist ending has no real surprise effect on me anymore. it's a great ending though, especially compared to something like Rabbit Rampage (i just forgot the title and sat there for 15 seconds going "what was it?? Rebel Rabbit? no! Rhapsody Rabbit? no!! r.. Redrawn Rabbit???" which probably speaks to.. something) whose ending is just completely illogical and lame. in the words of the immortal proto-Fudd, "I DON'T BELIEVE IT"

BUT! to answer your question. this is probably one i'll come back to because i was kicking myself that i missed. there's a lot of great twist endings out there, but one of my favorites is probably Hare Brush, in that it's revealed that Elmer has been acting like a rabbit through entire cartoon NOT because he's having a psychotic break, like the story establishes it as, but so he can get away with tax evasion. maybe hits harder having seen the entire cartoon but it's great, i love Arthur Q. Bryan's line read here

before i remembered this though i almost answered with the ending to Quentin Quail. it's not so much a twist ending so much as it is a "wtf" ending but there are few things funnier to me on this earth than the Baby Snooks caricature refusing to eat a worm--in which this cartoon is all about her poor father killing himself trying to get said worm for her to eat--because it looks too much like Frank Sinatra. took my breath away the first time i saw it. this is my exact sense of humor and i feel so vindicated that this 78 year old cartoon could jump across generations and appeal so personally to me specifically

[weaselbeaselpants]

Abbreviated Film list of "Disturbing Animated films"

--CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR LATER FILMS: nudity, SA, CSA, violence, fetuses, child mortality, racial violence and hate-crimes, misogyny, gore and blood, body horror, war crimes, animal ab*se, poop eating, elder ab*se, s3lf harm, inc3st --

Because commenting was taking to long on Reddit, here's my complete list of the Version 3. iceberg chart I made for 'disturbing animated feature (40-60 min) films. --No shorts, tv or mini series-- Films/franchise titles are in italics as in the actual chart. Horror (or what I personally deem as horror for whatever reason) are highlighted in red, non-horror are left white. Movies that 'aren't fully' or 'aren't really' animation are marked in blue.

An entire creator/studio's work being condensed into a single ranking on the chart for convenience are marked with yellow, THO films in these catalogues that deserved their own ranking elsewhere on the chart mean that next to the studio/creator's name is a '*'. My personal condensed reviewratings are marked in this post with a "bad", "mid", "good", "great!" or "FAVORITE" rating at the end.

Let's get right into it:

Disney (any Walt Disney Studios and Disney Toons studios feature films) and Pixar. My FAVORITEs are Beauty and the Beast, Fantasia, Great Mouse Detective, Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc personally. For all the horror the donkey-changing scene in Pinocchio struck us with it alone does not make it a horror film) Image Movers (Polar Express, Beowulf Mars needs Moms and Christmas Carol 2009.) *Nickelodeon movies (Jimmy Neutron, Barnyard, The Rugrats and Spongebob movies obv. Exception listed below is Rango) *Cartoon Saloon. (Irish 2D animation studio. My FAVORITEs of theirs are Wolfwalkers and Song of the Sea. Exception listed is The Breadwinner in the reblogs) Bluesky (Nimona, Ice Age, Robots) Aardman. Chicken Run which is a FAVORITE, Wallace and Gromit) Illumination (Minions and Sing) and Dreamworks (Ogrelord and Dreamworks Face) Sony (Spiderverse, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) **Studio Ghibli (exceptions listed are Princess Mononoke and Grave of the Fireflies in the reblogs) Soyuzmotefilm. Artsy Russian animation studio (The Snow Queen, The Humpbacked Horse). Prolific handrawn movies that inspired Miyazaki. Rankin/Bass, aka the makers of Rudolph and Frostie and the other staples of 60s-70s holiday programming. Don Bluth (specifically his older work like All Dogs go to Heaven, Land Before Time and Secret of NIMH. I know the man is iconic in the 90s childhood trauma scene but I had to make space and it was easier to put all of his work together like this) Momoru Hosada (director of Boy and the Beast, Mirai, The Girl who Leapt through Time, Wolfchildren, Belle, Summerwars) The Pokemon films The Casper films The Hotel Transylvania films The Monster High films *The Scooby Doo films (exception listed being Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, considering it's infamy) [not properly highlighted in the image] The Unico films. The Howard Lovecraft films. Garbage but are MY garbage.

Standalone films:

Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night and Happily Ever After. Mid. Filmation movies made in the 80s to capitalize on Disney film rereleases and act as unofficial sequels. They get kind of dark at parts, especially Pinocchio.

The Last Unicorn. Great! Absolute classic. It is for kids but mature kids and despite that rating there are harpy titties.

Comet Quest/Adventures of Mark Twain. Great! Everyone else on the internet will know this as being the Will Vinton film from which "The scariest scene in animation"/"Mysterious Stranger" scene comes from.

James and the Giant Peach. FAVORITE. Love this movie though I didn't as a little kid on account of thinking it looked freaky. Lots of 80s-90s kids movies are like that so up it goes. While it and Comet Quest were never intended to truly scare anybody they are visually intense movies for little kids and children/people who don't know what to make of em. I get it, considering that's how I feel about 80s fantasy puppet movies.

Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure. Mid. Richard Williams animation is wonderful and Andy and Anne are adorbs, but also intense and frightening to young children. Gooseworx loves it tho.

A Mouse and his Child. Good. Sweet but intense animated film about a father/son windup toy. Apparently it's based on a story that's not for kids??? Shown alongside 'Ringing Bell' mentioned below.

The Brave Little Toaster. Great! Childhood fav, but still very intense and almost needlessly cruel at time.

The Transformers Movie. Good. As a non fan of the franchise it is shocking seeing these made-for-little boy's amusement characters die so horrifically.

Leafie, a Hen into the Wild. Good. Intense and sad 2011 family movie from South Korea. It's grim and has a bummer ending, but not the extent of the movies in the tier under the iceberg I don't think.

The King and the Mockingbird. Great! One of the mandatory viewings of 2D animation. IT'S SO GOOD, but the fluidity might offput some people ala JatGP or RaAAMA.

Ringing Bell. Great! Sanrio (yes THAT Sanrio) animated film about a baby sheep who looses his mother than goes to get revenge on the wolf who killed her. Very sad. Very beuatiful. Technically only 40 minutes but damn.

The Iron Giant. Great! As a kid the moments with the bomb at the end, agent Mansly and even the moment where Hogarth first meets the Giant were pretty scary.

-Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Great! Technically only half animated but it was wrong not to include it mostly for the sake of Judge Do-"WHEN I KILLED YOUR BROTHER?! I TALKED JUST LIKE THIIIIIIIIS!!!"

Fantastic Mr. Fox. Great! Met some people and families who were disturbed by the style of the Wes Anderson film. Another case of "people are scared of stop-motion and so find anything other than Aardman freaky".

Kubo and the Two Strings. Great! One of the best Laika films. Not horror but does get horrific with Kubo's grandfather and Aunties.

Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart. Mid. A steampunk gothic kids??? (lots of sex references; maybe in France it's made for teens and adults) film about a boy who can never fall in love or his clock heart will give out. It's sad and the style may upset people.

Rango. FAVORITE! Trippy lil older teen movie especially with it's style. I don't know how much bits like the dream sequence or Rattlesnake Jake scared kids but they probably did.

Yellow Submarine. Great! Despite not actually being a film for kids a lot of kids can watch it and have and find the psychedelic designs and art creepy.

Nutcracker Fantasy. Great! See Benett the Sage's video on it and the hidden Japanese history of Rankin/Bass.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Great! Another part-animated film but one which is beautiful, sweet and solemn. Not a movie made for kids but one that they could watch and cry with their hipster parents over.

Mad Monster Party. Good. Rankin/Bass Halloween film made with MAD Magazine. Commonly expected monster-puns but also a lot more references to sex, drinking and death in this flick than you'd expect of Rankin/Bass. It slaps.

The Nightmare Before Christmas. FAVORITE! Prolly favorite film ever. I'm still so shocked by people who say the visuals alone make it not a kids film. It is for kids. Kids like dark stuff.

Frankenweenie. Mid but also FAVORITE! I stan despite it's problematicisms (coughcoughToshiakicough) but I still think it's better than Corpse Bride. The grizzliest thing is the method in which some of the monster-pets die.

Corpse Bride. Good. Even as a kid this movie never scared me besides Victor's initial meeting of Emily.

The Book of Life. Mid. I WANT TO LIKE IT MORE! George's Day of the Dead film with some more dashes of death-talk and frights than Coco. George is GOAT and I just wanna like his work more but can't and I hate it.

La Petite Vampire. Mid. ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE if not flawed film based on a French webseries. Cutsey monster-goodness with monster-appropriate references to death and afterlife.

The Halloween Tree. It's over an hour so it counts as a movie. As expected for a Ray Bradbury story about Halloween it has some frights to it.

Igor. Mid. Not that bad. I guess if lesser-grade CGI is 'disturbing' to you somehow it might freak kids out.

Zombrilenium. Bad. Wanted to like this french film more but it's really not very good.

Scooby Doo on Zombie Island. Good. The OG 'Scooby Doo but darker' flick. Good children's horror fun.

Osmosis Jones. Good. It's a gross out buddy comedy with genuine horror happening to the anthro-cels. With or without Thrax it's pretty horrifying at parts. Had to go somewhere in this tier for sure.

Ana y Bruno. Mid. A Mexican animated film with a twist I think everyone but me saw coming. Feels very Bluesky-ish despite being about a child who can see other people's hallucinations.

Alice. Great! A mandatory viewing especially for stop-motion fans. In the words of Kyle Kallgreen, what makes this film so unsettling is that it wasn't just made for art; it was legit made for children and not intended as a horror film. Svankmajer made this movie for kids. Tho I do unironically find it less scary than the 55' Disney film.

Paranorman. Good but not my fav. The bit with Agatha and the zombies (even if it's played for laughs) are pretty creepy and also the harassment Norman gets may be disturbing.

Coraline. FAVORITE! "SHE'S A PEACH, SHE'S A DOLL, SHE'S A PAL OF MINE!" Neil Gaiman's crimes will never take this brilliance away from me.

Monster House. Good. Noice solid children's-horror flick which also has no fatalities say for the villain but still manages to be scary. The best ImageMovers film.

Wendell and Wild. Mid. Flawed and badly paced but y'know still about demons, death, possession and prison abuse of the system and made by Selick and Jordan Peele so really how could this not go on here.

Tito and the Birds. Mid. Found it's overall story an execution of said story lacking but the build up and dread the film has does feel appropriate.

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio. Great! LOVED IT. A movie made for people that kids can watch and not be too disturbed by but still- with or without Del Toro, it IS Pinocchio and a lot of the things that happens in it are messed up.

-The Dark Crystal. Good. Not technically an animated film but I had to mention because there aren't any humans on screen. Messed up, mythological and grim like Oz and Henson wanted. Is there anything to be said that hasn't been said already? Dark is literally in the title.

[shadowfear-art]

I saw your one piece animated for terror au and it's amazingggg!

But could you maybe tell more about it? Is there gonna be a fic of it? (It there is it'll be awesome-)

Sadly no fic cause I can't write a full story to save my life... Anyway-

Ah ye! If you are new to the Au itself (because I've been using the concept for other fandoms so there are established rules and world building that carry over) I'll give a quickest general background summery then the story itself.

Future me note: This ended up being more than a summary.

There's a ancient eldritch pen that turns anything into a toon/living drawing, usually with the needed help of a human hand to wield it.

Basically pen finds a vulnerable human, tempts them to draw out their woes or wants (whether they want to or not), leaves them with the consequences and fate of creating a living cartoon character with all the chaos that happens in between. There's an abundance of good, bad, ugly, and bitter sweet endings to these "stories".

Toons tend to dissapear sometime after as they have a place to dwell.

Now for Luffy, age 5, modern universe setting, living on Windmill Island (but not for long). Tho this story deviates from the normal formula.

Luffy has always been surrounded by people and his two close 'brothers' for the short 5 years of his life it was perfect. Until it wasn't and does what it always does, life changes. The people around the boy had begun to move on as they were needed elsewhere.

Garp was called over seas, something military? Luffy didn't really pay attention.

Shanks travels the world as an occupation.

Funny enough both of his brothers were involved in a custody battle and were required off the island to attend.

And so on and so forth, all promising to return.

Leaving Luffy alone in the care of Makino, as time went on a large ache began growing in his tiny chest. Taking the notice of something sinister.

"...Follow me... follo... me..."

"... I have... Something to... show you..."

A dark pied piper began singing it's deceitful tune into the childs dreams and eventually lure him out at night.

---

On the other end of this trap is two murder toons Crocodile and Doflamingo, both sent from toon world to take care of a certain annoying goup of intrest.

Toons are chaotic creatures thats no secret but thier existence is due to how crafty and dangerous they can be as a whole (not that humans haven't tried to let the world know about them just always seemingly fail from coincidence) so obviously there's an agency out to take care of these creatures, N.E.T (Neutralization and Extraction of Toons) Is their codename.

The more violent toons are sent out remove the growing annoyance.

And this night was no different, NET agency was taking root on the island so the duo are there to be an effective deterant... And relive some violent needs. Win-win.

Then Luffy walked right in to the situation.

Crocodile knew a trap when he saw one, just was figuring out what type... Or the boy actually wandered into a massacre in the middle of the night, ALONE.

Right.

Needless to say he had the right approach, scare the child and inflict a small "scratch" to cement he's not supposed to be here, if everything goes right the boy will run away bawling his eyes out. A better option than what Doflamingo had in mind.

What he didn't account for was the half dead agent behind his distracted self shooting right through him unable to see the small human due to the toons large size and cloak. It didn't hit Luffy but splattered him with ink, which is essentially the toons blood, new problem for the child.

The black liquid is 99% lethal if it entered a living beings blood system and just having inflicted a wound across the boys cheek Crocodile can now count the minutes before the tiny human collapses.

Unfortunate but perhaps the boy may appreciate the large toon return the favor to another neglectful adult in his short life.

Quick work.

Doflamingo was the first to catch that the kid wasn't dead after.

For the first time in years Crocodile felt his ink run cold, it was a trap.

It was always a trap for him.

The 1%, only if the two are compatible, instead of dying forces beyond understanding would convert living creatures into what they are.

White and black splotches have already begun to appear across the boy's skin, hair, and clothes with increasing speed.

Unsurprisingly both boy and tthon start to show two types of panic, Luffy being the louder soon becoming disoriented with confusion and Crocodile's mind racing to find a option that didn't involve killing a kid... That being said It wasn't off the table.

Before he could come to a conclusion both large toons noticed that their time was up and had to leave immediately.

All three of them.

The last thing heard were echoing wails for those who promised to return to the child's side now gone to a place they could never reach.

End. And the Beginning.

(This au has a B plot)

[popculturebuffet]

Top 12 Animated Episodes of 2024

Happy New Year You happy people! For those new to this blog or finding it for the first time, each year I do a list of the best episodes of cartoons i've watched that year. I do episodes as my short attention span means I finish maybe 20 if i'm lucky, so a top 12 list feels a bit more hollow. So starting in 2020 I started covering the top 20 episodes of animation, to celebrate the highest highs each year in my faviorite industry in a fun way. As i've turned away from covering shows as they've come out, it's also a way to check in on the various shows this year I haven't gotten to cover yet, and is something I look forward to every year and i'm delighted to have you all aboard.

So how this works: each year I normally took 5 episodes of each show i'd watched, narrowed them down and eventually sorted out the top 20. This year I slimmed things down: Top 12 instead of 20, 3 episodes per show, ready, FIGHT. This is so I could fit the whole shebang into one post and hopefully do a best film list, more convient for me and you.

Before we get to the good stuff though, let's talk about this year in tv animation. It was the best of times it was the blurst of times.

Let's get the bad out of the way first: Warner Bros Discovery continued to downplay animation: Jellystone and Tiny Toon Adventures Looniversity got no promotion and a halloween special for the latter never materalized despite being promoted. It's sadly likely neither show will make it past their current season. It's buisnes as usual but it gets no less tiring.

What's new is that WBD has all but killed Cartoon Network. While the Network still TECHNICALLY exists, most of it's originals have either endd or are winding down, with Craig of the Creek's finale delayed to this year just cuz and Invincible Fight Girl moved to adult swim. It's clear what was once a pillar of my childhood is being stripped for parts, with any sequels coming to max, itself sinking rapidly into the earth after Zaslav sold it's foundation to buy a cool watch he found on the internet.

Somehow worse was Disney. Oh fucking boy disney. I've talked about this a few times this year but to recap: Disney has peaked in homophobia and transphobia this year, firing X-Men 97 showrunner Beau Demayo for being openly gay and not just rubber stamping things for them but wanting to write actually challenging content, overworking the staff of Inside Out 2 while making them tone down Riley's crush on her hockey captain , including aging the character up because they GENUINELY assume lightyear failed because it had lesbians in it

Shelving a trans focused episode of moon girl and devil dinosaur, and shelving a trans storyline in upcoming show win or loose. Disney had already proved with owl house they weren't an ally but this year proved the company is DEEPLY homo and transphobic and deeply stupid, scrapping finished content just to appease a few bigots. I may still watch their shows as the creators had no part in this (and as seen with X-Men 97, MGADD and Win or Loose, were trying badly to do something good and got punished for it), but my opinon of the company is at an all time low. And given they supported the don't say gay bill, shot next to a concentration camp and other horrors, that's saying a LOT.

Animation in genreal faces an uncertain future with shows being shelved, and the animation guild having to fight tooth and nail to get better contracts, with the specter of ai being a deep exestential threat.

Thankfully there is some light in these dark times. For starters the Animation Guild successfuly reneigoated their contracts with more residuals, protections and protections from Ai. And content wise animation seems to be in one of it's best years. 2023 is a hard one to beat but 2024 certainly tried.

We had some all time great premeires as the superhero boom that's currently in crisis in theaters reached i'ts peak in animation: In addition to the returns of Invincible, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur and My Adventures with Superman (Apologizes for missing that one), we had the premeries of the delightfully noir and mature Batman Caped Crusader , the solid and fun Creature Commandos that proves the DCU's commitment to animation and the kickass and thought provoking X-Men 97, a series that did my boy Scotty justice after far too long. In a year when superhero content is dry as a bone theatrically with only Deadpool and Wolverine as a drop in that desert, it was nice to see Superhero Animation back with a vengance and with Spider-Man next year and Invincible Season 3 airing in one piece around the same time

Outside of superheroes we got Fairly Odd Parents a New Wish, Jentry Chau Vs the Underworld and Invincible Fight Girl.. all shows I didn't get to but not for a lack of intrest and intend to rectify that this year. I did get to Hazbin Hotel, which after a long wait finally opened it's doors to a solid first season with a god tier cast and soundtrack. I mean giving me more keith david singing is more than enough but damn this show brought it.

Also making it's grand return was Total Drama, a show I missed and that thankfully returned better than ever... in the US anyway. Everywhere else got it last year or earlier and both seasons of this reboot. Still it's an excellent reboot and while it didn't make this list, it was a great return to form after two terrible seasons and a long hiatus to make canadian muppet babies.

There were many great returns: Helluva Boss delivered a solid arc that flipped up the status quo and gave us three stone cold classics and... uh the other two. Vox Machina had some amazing moments as the chroma conclace conflict concluded, Jellystone and Great North delivered the greatest seasons of their runs, the former giving us the return of an american hero. All hail brak! Simpsons gave me a season that's kept me tuning in more than not and continues it's renissance while Bobs Burgers continued it's own.

2024 despite all the strife and terrible shit, was a fantastic year for animation, a year where despite every company devaluing the practice and being a dick, it soared higher. While I may be worn out with how companies treat animation and the political landscape, ther'es some refuge in how GOOD animation is and how it only has higher to climb next year. So let's celebrate these highest highs under the cut shall we?

12. The Gatekeeper (Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, S2-E0) "How many doors do I have to break through before they stop locking me out?"

I've reviewed this episode in full shortly after it's leak so i'll be brief:The Gatekeeper is a masterpiece. It's not subtle but given it comes from a company that shelved the episode because they "want parents to have conversations about these topics when their ready" forgetting that some parents are bigots who will never be ready for that conversation, it dosen't need to be. It's a beautiful story about how you don't need to take the weight of the world's bigotry on your own, how being YOU, trans, nonbinary, queer, is okay and your not burdening your friends by letting them into your fight to be you. It's also shockingly funny for an episode with this heavy an a-plot, with Casey trying to stall desperately. Leading to this beautiful moment

The Gatekeeper is only this low because the escape room stuff, which is a not sizeable chunk of the episode isn't super engaging, not helped by deadly escape room plots being kinda common these days. It's salvaged by it's metaphor at least: that transphobes and other bigots will just keep moving the goal post so fucking break it over your knee. This episdoe is excellent and I encourage you to find it in the depths of the internet. Disney MIGHT air it, if nothing else than for the backlash, but since we really CAN'T count on disney for shit when it comes to queer issues, it's going here. If you want a more in depth dive into this episode, lookee here

11. Apology Tour (Helluva Boss S2, Episode 9)

"I don't think you meant to hurt me, cause I don't think it meant a thing at all"

Helluva Boss finally finished season 2 this year.. and I finally finished season 2 around the same time as Sinsmas as I'd sat on the show for too long. My depression's been peaking this year

So I shoved the show aside. I regret that as season 2b is for the most part excellent and the decision to wait a while and release the episodes more consitantly was a smart one: it not only gave Helluva some space from it's little big sibling's big debut, but it meant while the episodes still had a long weight they weren't left to be picked apart for months. Mostly a month.

The first half of the season was good, but had issues: sloppy pacing, the series worst episode, not really following up on the bombshell ending of season 1 from Blitzo's perspective, it was good.. but the cracks were setting in. And while some still remain in this batch, it's damn strong helped by an arc tha'ts been built up all series: Blitzo, the o is silent, everyone's faviorite dumpster fire imp murder machine and Stolas, everyone's faviorite disaster gay prince who thinks like a romance novel splitting up. Break up is a bit strong given the transactional sex nature, but it's a bomb that was in wait: Blitzo has a bad habit of pushing anyone who cares about hi m away and Stolas really never got to actually KNOW Blitzo as a person, seeing him as a way out of his awful marriage and an idealized prince and not an actual person whose a bit fucked up nor. With Neither adressing their actually problems, an explosion was ineveitble.

Hence Apology Tour, the fallout of the explosion after Stolas attempt at a three point grand romantic gesture brought out the dick in blitz, who couldn't fathom someone being nice, lashed out and not understanding why Blitzo thought so little of him , Stolas slammed the door in the fancy magic man way rather than actually talk about it.

Full Moon has a great ending and the blitzo subplot is graet.. but it wasted a lot of time with those two assfaces and collin. Apology Tour thankfully more than makes up for it, a character piece focusing on both men as they deal with the breakup poorly: Stolas tries to just keep distance, while Blitzo shows up, tries to get sex to prove he's worth something to his inferority complex and screams at Stolas for being gay. Blitz WANTS to make up for things.. but is so determined to not actually talk about his feelings he's at peak asshole.

So when Stolas actually cuts deep, asking if Blitz is even CAPABLE of apologizing, Blitzo does what he tends to do: be a dick in a showy way just to get back at someone instead of engaging why their pissed at him. The montage of him apologizing to his enmies is fun, that martha ms mayberry thing needs more shading in in season 3... like just a short or something to establish what the fuck is going on there.

The episodes heart though is an I Hate Blitzo party Verosika throws. The queen is back, looking fine and getting some depth: while she was a full on antagonist in her first apperance and there to make a bad day worse in her second, here we see some humanity from everyone's faviorite succubus: she geninely tries to comfort Stolas who feels miserable, wasting his one night of the year pass to earth on a party where everyone wallows in their hatred of Blitzo an ex that Stolas makes clear he's not over. Verosika is TRYING to geninely help, but can't grasp that the poor bird is still in mourning over what he thought he had and stabbing a cake in the dick isn't helping.

What helps is the episodes best segment and the second best song of the season, possibly even best Two Minute's Notice is just.. heavy competition. All 4 U is Bryce Pinkham's finest performance: while "You'll be Okay" showed off his pipes back in episode 2, All 4 U is a raw song, a indie rock guitar ballad where Stolas lays out his pain: how he realizes now Stolas is both a motherfucker (As Verosika and Vortex helpfully chime on chorus) and how he never actually meant to hurt him.. because their relationship meant nothing. It's a painful beautiful song.. and also dosne't asauge Stolas of his own guilt. While Verosika and Vortex TRY to blame it all on Blitz, Stolas is PAINFULLY aware he fucked up. Surrounded by memories of EVERY time he's clearly realized Blitz.. was never into this and he tried too hard: all the times he demeaned him without meaning too nad hurt him... he gets the rejection wasn't all on Blitz. Blitz is an asshole, easily, but Stolas is in pain partly because he KNOWS he did it and partly because he still WANTS him. He can't STOP wanting him. And it hurts.. and Blitz hurts realizing he was a bad person.

It leads to the second best scene of the episode as Blitz comforts Stolas, whose too drunk to put up a fuss but unloads.. and we get my faviorite exchange. A truly painful one that outlines why this didn't work. " I want to be someone's someone! I want to feel wanted, in a romantic way! Like, I'm standing in the rain at a train station and someone runs up shouting "HARRIET! DON'T GO ON THAT TRAIN! IT'S GOING TO LONDON AND I CANNOT BE WITHOUT YOU!" " "Oh Stolas.. that' sa romcom"

I've been where Stolas is, that need for someone , to fill the void inside.. not getting that won't help you get BETTER. And Blitz realizes that.. and realizes what it did mean, geninely trying to apologize.

The talk with verosika is no slouch, with Blitz trying to ocne again put up walls. We even get a nice rebuke of the whole "Well of course their assholes their in hell" argument that gets flung around. When Blitz tries that Verosika rebuffs it and reveals to us why she's so hung up on him: She said I love you and he ran three rings to wrath and maxed out her credit cards on shitty horse riding lessons. It confronts Blitz with the fact that while he belivies he's unloveable.. he's not.. and the number of people he's hurt proves it. He wants to be better.. but he dosen't know how. he's patched things up with one ex.. but his other seems to be moving on. That last part whent nowhere.. but there's still that pain realizing he ALMOST had something, and his own nerousis fucked it up. For now anyway but we'll get to that

10. Remember It (X-Men 97, S1 Episode 5) "The Names Gambit Mon Ami.... Remember It"

Since it aired it's felt like Remember It making this list was ineveitble. It's the episode that took X-Men 97 from a fantastic show, to the best x-men show of all time. An episode that deftly and perfectly adapts one of the defining moments of the comics, the massacre of genosha, with it's own style and flair, broke our hearts with Gambit's tragic end and got nominated for an emmy with it's creator barred from them because Disney would rather frame a man for misconduct than let him get his flowers and the Emmy were just.. okay with this.

Grumbling aside Remember It is a masterpiece and one of the best wham episodes i've ever seen. For those as not terminally on tv tropes as I am a Wham Episode is an episode of tv that changes the show fundemntally or promises to, with a shocking reveal or a big plot twist or what have you.

This episodes secret sauce though is hiding that fact. It sneak attacks you as the first half is a pretty standard plot following up on things from the season: Cyclops continuing his relationship with Maddy, the clone of Jean despite still being married to jean and her less than happy reaction to their psychic affair, Jean trying to come onto Logan, and of course more of the magneto-rouge-gambit love triangle.

Yeahhh the reason this is so low is the Magneto-Rogue-Gambit Love triangle sucks. I went deep into why in my review of 97 Season 1, but the short version: it makes Magneto into a groomer as while Rogue is an adult in her 20's, he's still old enough to be her foxy grandpa and still manipulates her and in present day, his method of wooing her is making her queen of a foreign nation without asking. In a show that has easily the best Magneto in animation, i't sa blotch. It's intended to make him human and put rogue's desire for sexy time against her connection with remy. It's a good idea but the excution is just baffling and brings this episode down a peg.

What keeps it on this list is it's good parts The first is scott motherfucking summer in his most accurate adaptation yet, a capable leader and world class badass whose an emotinally stunted mess, laying out why mutant lives arne't NORMAL in a rant.

The biggun of course.. is the bait and switch. In a moment we go from Maddie, Jean's clone long story watch the show, going outside to get a breather.. to her son Nathan running up as full cable begging to save her before being yanked away.. and then Maddie dies. And a lot of others with her.

In a moment reflecting showrunner Beau DeMayo's experinces with the pulse night club shooting and 9/11, we're at the ground floor of a horrifying massacre. The orignal in New X-Men was horrific in how FAST it was. In minutes millions of mutants were dead, the x-men could do nothing in time, and the world changed. Here we're on the ground: three x-men are present along with some of the most powerful mutants in existance.. and they still can do nothing. Magneto whips the monsterous sentinel responsible with a motherfucking train, uses all of his power.. and only dosen't end up dead because the big bad wanted him alive. Rogue, easily one of the strongest x-men and a brick house tha'ts mighty mighty, is swatted aside. Gambit can throw stuff but none can do anything. This sequence is incredible, showing the powerlessness sin such a slaughter and the sheer trauma it puts on someone. It's the kind of event that leaves a bloody mark on history and cannot, SHOULD NOT be forgotten.

And like most massacres against the disinfranchised it only ends in one way.. with more blood. In this case Remy after Rogue FINALLY realized she loved him but never got to say, gets horribly imapled. And graphically. This series does not shy away from violence. And rather than just die he goes out with a quip and making himself an dthe monster he faces blow up real good. The episode ends somberly on Rogue weeping over his death, invoking va lenore zahn's lost of her niece and signaling this series will never be the same. Remember it is fucking brilliant and if you haven't seen x-men 97, please do.

9. The Sign (Bluey S3 Episode 49)

"Am I making a mistake?" "Probably.. but let's make it together" So i'm late the party, but I finally got into Bluey this year, thanks to this very episode. The huge buzz around it's release from fellow animation nerds had me curious so I watched a few that were recommended.. then some more and before I knew it i'd watched most of it's three seasons.

Bluey is a throughly charming show, keenly deserving of it's massive succes. It's a show that's meant for younger viewers, teaches lessons but unlike most shows, it dosen't talk down to young children. it's made in a way adults and older kids can enjoy too, as you can empathize both with the childish wonder of our lead, her sister and thier various friends, relatives and whatever sort of delightful stygian goblin muffin is

And see the adults side. It's a show that somehow covered Bingo imitating any animal she wears a onsie of and the chaos that insues and Chilli's estraingment with her sister who stayed distant because being around her nieces reminded her she can't have children. It's a show that's warm, loving and utterly brilliant.

And given this is me it took me a long time to get to creator Joe Brumm's swan song as I knew it would emotoinally wreck me.. and I was right. The Sign is Bluey's first half hour special, the other episodes being 8 minute shorts all bundled together and while there's an episode after it , it's the proper finale to the season and to Joe Brumm's time as showrunner.

The Sign has been a fully admited test run to see if Bluey could handle a longer story for a movie and even before that movie's recent greenlight, it was clear yes they could. It's helped by picking two massive events in the heeler's life that perfectly mesh together, nicely zigging in and out of each other. It's amazing how well the creators got this episode to just flow, and to keep up a nice array of jokes despite the heavy topics. Bluey's utter joy at getting to ride shotgun and Chilli carefully checking to make sure it's legal (and a police officer doing the same thing later), is such a briliant gag. It also has plenty of muffin, always a plus.

The first is a big downer: Bandit's gotten what he feels is a better job, and is uprooting the family for it. Bingo is oblivous to the reality of the move and Chilli is trying to be supportive leaving Bluey the only one who wants out. We get a truly soulcrushign scene when she tells her friends, them all hugging her and sobbing. Her teacher Calypso tries to cheer her up with a fable, but she misnterprets rolling with life's hardships as "everything will work out which means we'l lescape. "

This rolls nicely into the other big plot: it's the wedding of Frisky, Chilli's best friend since childhood and Rad, Bandit's brother. The two debuted and had their meet cute in my faviorite episode of the series, Double Babysitter. It's one of the first I watched, entirely because I knew it set up this one... and it is glorious. The two were shown on holiday in the christmas episode and here they get married.

And look I love wedding episodes so much kev paid me to make a top 12 wedding episode lists this year, which has one of my faviorite art pieces i've done

So I was an easy sell, doubly so after seeing Double Babysitter. The episode does well with it: the heeler's family is all present, everyone's ready to go.. then Stripe bandit's younger brother does an oopsie and mentions rad plans to have Frisky move with him to near the oil rig without having actually talked this through with her. Rad is thankfully just very bad with people, but this casues Frisky to snap and the resulting argument sends her on the run and declaring the wedding is off.. which is bad for bluey as Frisky was told to remove the 4sale sign and bluey thinks this stops it because she's a children

We then get some fun shenanignas as Chilli has to go chase our runaway bride and while she intends to leave the kids, who want to go for personal reasons or just a ride in the car, they find a perfectly hilaroius reason not to with every kid nearly telling Rad's mom about the disaster because kids have no filter and thus Chilli is sent on an epic quest

What follows is what clinches the episode: after a bunch of shenanigns that are perfectly hilarous, Chilli goes to her and Frisky's old hang out where they used to think.. and also smoke a dooby or twoobie. It's here we get the perfect intersection: part of Chilli's freakout, besides the entirely resonable pissyness over the rad situation is her best friend leaving.. and Chilli finally reveals she DOSEN'T want to leave. Leave her best friend, the house her family has been raised in.. she just wants ot be supportive. And seeing her mom finally be honest gets Bluey to embrace change. And Rad being a good dude whose just a tad awkawrd, can relate, apologizes and decides not to move.

It's this that helps them blend so perfectly: Rad like Bandit is making a rash decision based on what he thinks what's best and has to see the real effect it has. He likely dosen't back out sooner simply because the house is sold. But when the buyers back out to buy winton's dad's house so he and winton can move in with the terriers nad their mum, shoutout to winton, we get our joyous ending as Bandit rips the fucking sign out, and the family all has takeaway.

The Sign is a callback filled wonderland, a truly heartrending episode and a vicotry lap for bluey's best season. It also has Stripe passing out drunk in the bushes next door because Wendy can't make it out of anything unscathed apparently. Hopefully Stripe isn't heading for divorce. Maybe check the sink mate see if hot dogs are there

Okay while we process that ineveitble divorce onto

8. Sinsmas (Helluva Boss S2, Episode 12)

"Have a great fucking life with him dad"

Back to Helluva Boss and to the most recent episode and one of the series best. Admitely this one was an easy sell for me: it's an octavia episode. Loo Land is still one of my faviorites and while Seeing Stars is a mess, the stuff with her and Loona is heartwrenching and adorable. I hope even with what happened here, Loona still mentors her little sis. The fact i've had the little emo ace on the brain as I ship her with Sasha from amphibia probably dosen't help. My crossover ships are weird and numerous and I find this one adorable and the being ace (not aro) adds a nice lair of things and is something I hope the show brings up outside of the pride photo confirming everyone's sexualities, as we need more ace representation in our animation. She could party with Todd

But while I have my bias... this episode is just plain amazing on it's own. While what i've seen of Mastermind is decent, Andy's plan makes no sense and only works because he was working over someone whose kinks are racisim and classim but the status quo change is phenominal: Stolas is now left broke and powerless, while having proven beyond a shadow of a doubt he cares for blitz, while Blitzo, after episodes of dealing with his darkest demons, realizing he dosen't ruin everything (Ghostfuckers barely didn't make the cut), and becoming a better person for a change, caped off by telling the ruler of hell's vice principal to go fuck himself, has rewarded him with fame, adoration and the knowledge his daughter loves him.

But it leaves thing in an intresting place and while I expected to wait between seasons for the fallout, i'm delighed Sinsmas instead bakes in it. With Andrealphus and Stella keeping Octavia from calling her dad because it's how they get off, Stolas is left spinning out, not dealing with his transition to working class life well, not helped by being out of meds. It' sa nice bit of spiraling as while Stolas sacrifcing himself was brave, and the right thing... it was still an impulse decision that he didn't expect to have to live with. Stolas fully expected to die a brave hero saving the love of his life... and instead has to live with the consequences of doing the right thing and the hurt it brings to the only person in his old life he ever really loved.

The good news is Blitz.. is actually in a place for a healthy relationship, and we see the guy at his sweetest: he makes breakfast, realizes maybe eggs were a poor choice, robs clothing stores (which explains his slick wordroebe in the funneist way possible) and catches rats for his sorta boyfriend and tries to calm him down. It's this landing that makes the arc strong for me: After sinking to his lowest.. Blitz is actually trying to change for the better. He's still his weird ass profane as hell self, but he's no longer the sexually harassing bitter hate filled man who assumed the worst of everyone. He's not going to be a ray of sunshine, but it's heartwarming ot see after two seasons of Blitz digging himself deeper, he's TRYING to change. As we've seen with shows like bojack horseman, change is an uphill battle and he'll no doubt have issues.. but it's ncie to see Blitz as something resembling his best self.

And that extends to the titular holiday: while Blitz is working on sinsmas it's not to force his employees to work, but to let them enjoy themselves as sinsmas is about enduging your sin and he already nearly burned down his apartment once while the office is insured. So M and M have some sexy violence (My faviorite bit being her showing up behond a white bord to sock him and his happy awee when she kisses him after) and Loona to gorge herself on snacks, while Stolas gets a job (his oh fuck i'm poor is delightful)

Sadly the team gets a bitch of a client who wants to murder he gay ex for "probably" cheating on her and leave her kids orphans. Blitz only agrees because she sucks but the remidner of his failings leads to Stolas going to see his daughter..... just as Octavia gets a very sad song steeling herself up to be alone, her mom and uncle ignoring her and finding her dad.. was addicted to depression meds just to function and as is her way, blaming herself for her dad's issues and going to give him his pills.

While this sitcom misunderstanding happens, we get another nice show of blitz's character development. once again the target is a happy family.. but this time... Blitz can't do it and dosen't berate Moxxie for it. All he sees is what he COULD have: him, stolas and their daughters all happy, an image that just thinking about it makes me tear up and despite Loona offering and Millie badly wanting to and strangely being unersonable, he can't. He cancels the contract, yeets a karen out a window and then runs into his new step daughter and realizes "oh fuck my boyfriends confronting his ex in law who can kill him"

Granted before Andrealphus can actually try to kill him we get a cathartic as hell face beating. While Andy heals becaues Goetia can do that, it's so damn nice to see Stolas not listen to his ranting and just beat his ass. It's even nicer when even when stolas is kidnapped, the reste of Imp makes a meal of beating his ass down, an eppic winter showdown with Loona suddenly pulling direwolf forms out of her ass, blitzo being a knight complete with lance and Millie ramboing up. I'ts one of the series best fights in a show that's fucking great at them and cumilates in octavia saving her dad, and guests and blackmailing her uncle into not finishing as he was beaten by commoners and all and Stella is not good at keeping secrets unless she's too dumb to realize why their secret.

Yet the parting of father and daughter.. is bitter and painful. Octavia breaks from her dad, convinced the pills were her and having been lied too so much. Yeah the pills thing is a reach.. but her not beliving in her dad.. makles sense. Stolas loves his daughter.. but LOVE isn't the same as being a good parent. He's neglected her due to his marraige falling apart and then the divorce, openly obessed over the man who as far as octavia knows broke up a working marriage instead of a deeply horrible one neither had a choice in. It's the cumilation of Stolas faults biting him in the ass: his inablility to see what others feel, to take the time to take care of them, and putting his fantasy version of reality over what's in front of him , the same things tha tcost him Blitz fo ra time... cost him his daughter. His quiet "she hates me" after is devistating as is the nice montage of everyone getting ready to party as blitzo (who nicely ate coals to warm up), cuddles him. he's jut there, alone utterly devistated.

But in some heartwarming bits.. he's not. Moxxie warmly offers him cookies and I swear once Stolas recovers a bit they'll be best pals. Blitz is gonna hate it :B! At while Loona seemds.. happy having kept the friends from Queen Bee and eager to have everyone join in games.

Millie is less than as we get a pregnancy cliffhanger but it's easy to see why she's overwhelmed: she won't be able to do what she loves, having a kid is expensive and her husband was stripping off his clothes while screaming BANKRUPTCY two episodes ago. Her friend group is not exactly "chill" at the best of times. These panic attacks will be glorious.

But Blitz recognizes Stolas needs him and offers his unconfditonal support ina beautfiul scnee; He hasn't given up reconcling with his siter.. and Stolas dosen't have to give up reconcling with his daughter. she just needs time.. and for now.. they ahve each other and we get a beautful dance as these two pass by being a transactional fucking, a disaster, bitter exes and awkawrd friends... and finally become the couple the series has been buliding too. Will this happiness last? probably not.... but being there for someone is being there for the bat shit too.. and the ending shot, Blitzo hugging stolas while stolas stands there and soaks it in, is proof they can make it. and that season 3's gonna be something special.

7. Hell to Pay (Legend of Vox Machinas S3, Episode 4)

"I’m not even sure you knew you were lying"

Like Helluva Boss, legend of Vox Machina is one of my faviorite shows right now. Not concidentally both are a fixture on this list. I crunched the numbers recently seeing how many spots overall shows got and with this list Vox Machina and Helluva Boss are tied for second with 7 a piece, passing amphibia's 6 and behind Owl House's whopping 10.

Vox Machina's also our reining champ having topped last year's list with Rise of the Chroma Conclave, and it was certainly welcome to try again. And Season 3 brought it: It had some issues, the back half is a big jangly with one big exception we'll get to, but it's still a hilaroius, heartbreaking badass tail of a bunch of misifts thrust into saving the world.

This year took even more liberties with the campaign and one of the biggest success stories from that was Zerxus. Zerxus didn't exist yet when the campaign legend of vox machina was based off of happened, coming instead years later for the spinoff prequel Exandria Unlimited: The Calamity.

For those who haven't gobbled up every bit of critical roll lore they could because their a thirsty bitch like me, The Clamaity is the big event in backstory that shaped this world and barred the gods from it after a war between the nicer ones nad the eviler ones wrecked the world. The Clamity shows HOW that happened as a bunch of misguided high class types who ended up being the players did an oopsie and the apolcalypse happened. I don't know much more as I want to experince this one and hope it gets a movie or mini series some day as Zerxus left a hell of an impression.

Zerxus was a high minded man who loved his family and made the mistake of trying to make a demon god better. We hadn't got to see him in the present day so Legend of Vox Machina ups his roll to let us see it, bringing back his player Luis Carazo. Carazo is one of the two main reasons this ep made the list, as Zerxus is one of the series best vilians thus far and it's hinted he'll be back for the final arc.

Zerxus in the show is the ideal of a demon: cordial, clever, powerful.. and scheming as hell, zeroing in on pike. He has the plate of the dawnmaryr, one of the last vestiges our heroes need and the only one that can properly counter Thordak as he won it in a card game. No really he won it from an immortal dragon who neglected to mention that part when she told our heroes about it. So half the party is in hell. Hell here is a truly horrifying desolate place: people beg for death, the demon designs ar ehorrifyign (even our heroes disguises) and while ther'es some humor there's an overwhelming sense of dread and hoplessness. Our heroes only find Zerxus.. because he figures their looking for him as if you say the devils name enough times he's liable to here it.

It's a bad place to be... and especaily for the focus of this episode, Pike. Pike is the team's cleric and her goddess the everlight warns her against going.. but the team NEEDS this so we see the poor gnome slowly degrade. Her god has abndoned her and her attempt to help someone only gets everyone nearly killed. She's in a place beyond hope, beyond her god, and beyond her usual cheerful give no fuck attidue.

And that's where the episode gets intresting as Zerxus senses that and having understandable issues with his own god, is determined to pull a heretic on her. And unlike Hugh Grant rather than just mansplane and mimic jar jar binks he hammers in on her doubts, on her need to SEEM like she belivies, on every insecurity.. and challenges her to a card game for her soul. Because Yugioh doesn't have a patent on that, she agrees.. and looses as it's also a game of questions and if you lie, even if it's also to yourself, yoru cards burn.

So Pike has to gamble everyone's soul. Thankfully her mothers gone but her friends aren't so lucky, and also aren't able to consent as their stuck in a glass box. At least they have plush chairs up in this bitch. It's a fascinating character study and helps deepen pike: while she had an arc in season 1, mostly to give Ashly Johnson something to do as she was absent for most of that arc in the web show and couldn't be added back in without breaking the arc in half, here they take advantage of her being in the show more by really diving into her and the question of gods: the everlight is her god.. but how much of her belief his her and how much is her god? When is faith leaning too heavily on someone especially someone who isn't some unknowable being but you know.

Zerxus makes a mistake in his attempts to lecture: he gives his backstory: he and his friends did a stupid, wee were over this.. but the part I glossed over and that undoes him is his family: he did this so his husband and son would be safe.. and naturally making a deal with the devil his god removed their memories. So Pike asks a question: do you wish they were here suffering with you. And while he denies it as pike put it in the quote... he was lying to himself. Pike wins and our heroes get the plate. Granted they have to outrun Zerxus pit fiend because he only needs pike for his evil plan..

This episode at it's core is a spectacular game of chance, will and breaking your opnent and I loved every second of it. It's a series high point for Ashley Johnson and I can't wait to see where this goes next season.

6. ...And Be A Villain (Batman: Caped Crusader S1 Episode 2)

"I don't believe your performance. Your chewing on scenery to enhance weak characterization. It's insincere Basil, it's not real"

So Batman Caped Crusader fucks.

Caped Crusader is a glorious noir return to tv animation for batman after a long nap after they screwed over beware the batman and brave and the bold. While Paul Dini is back, he alongside fellow batman legend and catwoman's real dad Ed Brubaker, do something different, a slightly darker world set in a more socially open 1940's where he can have the government be corrupt from the top down without networks whining "the government can't be corrupt! Children need to have faith in the government!"

So we get a gotham where a few honest people are the only one's fighting against a corrupt system, and while batman can put away the varoius freaks of the weak, it's going to be harder cutting out the cancer at the center alone.

Yet while this is a darker take it refeshingly dosen't stick to just a grim grounded tone as much of batman does in adaptations. While I love Matt Reeves the Batman, it's nice to have variety and while Caped Crusader is a bleak work at times, it remembers to have fun and that while batman's dark.. he can also be camp. The first episode has penguin as a female (and awesome) crime boss who will kill her own children if necessary, she also has a giant umbrella shaped canon on top of her umbrella shaped dockside yacht as her main weapon. The third episode has a catwoman who rather than the complex thief I prefer, is a spoiled socialite who steals batman's bit to fund her lifestyle and army of cats. We get outright supernatural villians with the racist and classist gentleman ghosts and the tragically selfish vampire child nocturna. There's an overaching story.. but the show also gleefully embraces being episodic ala BTAS: while every episode contributes something to the larger arc, each one stands alone beautifully allowing for the sharp character focus of BTAS while still bringing something diffrent to the table.

That brings us to this episode, my faviorite to watch out of the season. We'll get to my overall faviorite but while that episode is a hard but awesome watch due to it's ending, this one is just good damn fun with a clever mystery and nice character building.

In this case the focus is on Renee Montoya, who eats good this series, probably helped that the man who redefined her in Gotham Central and 52, Ed Brubaker, was head writer for season one and wrote this episode. Also as my fellow reviewer Serum Lake has said if you like this show, read Gotham Central. It's a police procedural from the view of the GCPD's honest cops and it's damn good. Batman isn't an active character but more a presence and it's a brilliant series.

Here Renee is one of the only honest cops as usual for this franchise, having been recently promoted by Gordon and is resented by other cops because well.. she's a woman, and they see her as having gotten the position on that and not the fact she actually does her fucking job and dosen't take bribes. Which should be the bare minimum for a cop but wether your in gotham or real life, apparently isn't.

While Batman's around this episode, he nicely sinks into the background: Renee's the one doing the leg work and like most white men Bruce is content to leech off the work of a succesful person of color. I'm not even Kidding.. mostly. He's not asking for help because this batman is at a stage where he refuses help and calls his dad "Pennyworth" he's not exactly okay and the series isn't treating this like "okay", just a pramatic step so batman dosen't have to do the same work someone just as good at detectiving is twice, nor doe she want her credit. He just wants the same thing she does: the case solved.

The case revolves around the murder of a starlet, and soon wraps into one Basil Karlo, a vetrain actor who plays "the heavy", the bad guy, and badly wanted to be dramatic but with his face couldn't get the part. So as you can probably guess, he decides to kill for it, a nice nod to his first apperance. This clayface isn't a nigh unstoppable monster, but a thorughly human one: a man who desperate for his co stars love and the public's praise, took a shady chemical from a back alley doctor and become a malformed lump of a man.. but one who could remold his face.. Yet he still got rejected.. not because of his face.. but because Yvonne, his costar, simply was never intrested.

So rather than accept this, Basil decides to instead accept he is the villian and we get a thriling story buildling up to that reveal as he imitates several people: he can't turn his body into a weapon like modern clayface, but he can make his face whatever. Basil is a fantastic villian, and not just because he and batman fucking swordfight, which is as dope as it sounds. He's a man who felt rejected by society.. but in reality simply was an entitled bastard who while tragic to an extent ,focused on the wrong things. While it's in a very 40's context it's hard not to parallel basil with the various incels littered aroudn the internet: an angry man who blames his self loathing and issues on everyone else. Basil is a fun ham but as Yvonne puts out his actual satisfactoin with being the bad guy.. is artifice. He's a bitter person who can't accept life sucked for him but he still had a pretty good one.

It's fitting the person solving his case is a woman and hte person beating his face in is someone whose also not handling his trauma well.. but ultimately wants to help people. Batman may be rougher, colder here.. but he's doing this to save people and Renee can see that. Despite the odds against her she solves the case, and gets the credit.. kinda. I mean corrupt assholes Bullock and Flass tease her about batman but given he kicks their ass next episode what goes around comes around. More on them later. For now Renee has a new ally and basil can be the bell of the prison's production of pirates of pinsance.

This episode has wonderful atmosphere, a real theatrical quality> While I haven't watched a ton of 1940s films, this really has that feel just a good noir with a nice new take on an old favorite that harkens back to his earliest appearances. Basil might not show up again, at least not next season but man.. what a performance.

5. Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition DX 4K (Anniversary Director's Cut) (Smiling Friends S2 Episode 1)

"I Swear to god if I had my Gwimbly gun on me right now man i'd.."

After a year off Smiling Friends came back and better than ever. Well mostly, still not pleased about having Doug Walker cameo after his tommy wiseau level bullshit as a director and general ambivalence to the mistreatment of the rest of Channel Awesome, but that's a rant for another day.

Still i'm not going to hold it against Gwimbly: Not typing out all those subtitles had to copy paste it in the first place. It was the showcase that smiling friends was not only back but had improved: with a bigger budget Hadel and Cusak took things to new heights and came out of the gate with an ambitious bonkers idea: what if our heroes helped a homeless ps1/n64 either collectathon mascot abandoned by time and his company get his groove back. Well Pim's trying Alan just wants to spray him with dirty brown water.

Gwimbly arrives in all his polygonal and prolapsed anus glory, with Pim determined to help his friend and Alan only doing it to get a homeless man off his lawn. Alan is.. a bit of a prick this season and it's hilarious. The creators clearly realized fans loved the guy and his potetial and rather than do what I assumed, fuck with that expectation, they instead make Alan a part of more plots and his dry, not giving a fuck nature makes for comedy gold, paticuarlly his spotlight which missed the list but can HANG out with me, and smoke weed, and fill our bellies with DIET soda and play Burnout Revenge for the PS Two.

Here he makes a nice partner for Pim.. and proves while Charlie may be awful at his job and barely giving a fuck.. he at least.. tries. In just one day in the field Alan dropkicks an innocent woman who "startled" him and constantly asks if he can just drop Gwimbly wherever including a graveyard.

Gwimbly is also great satire of the modern game landscape: The CEO of the company that made Gwimbly is a grotesque asshole whose best known for a meme i've had endless use for and is easily the season's best line

And sends his latest creation to go murder our heroes for crowdfunding a gwimbly game after his company pivoted to fps.

We get some truly fantastic gags. Gwimbly threatning to use his Gwimbly gun, his former antagonists weird wife and his sidekick mr milipede getting a smash cut to his grave, having died of Fentnyl. The climax where the ceo gets killed by his own creation and said creation and gwimbly decide to do a mascot fighter is heartwarming. Also Charlie has a subplot with an angry asshole. It's okay, and mostly notable for the guy ripping Charlie's nose o off..a nd thent he cut back later to Charlie calcmly trying to call 911 to get an ambulence while the douchey client who won't leave tries to bully him. It's the funneist episode of the year , one of the most insane and a good sign for the series future.

4. Mutant Liberation Begins (X-Men 97 S1 Episode 2)

 "Charles Xavier entrusted me with his dream, and it does not ask you to love or embrace my kind as your own, but merely to accept that this is a shared world with a common future, and that my kind, like yours, have the right to live in it. I am trying to be better. Please...do not make me let you down..."

I fucking love Magneto. and even with the stupid ass grooming subplot, X-Men 97 does a damn good magneto. It portrays him as the complex asshole he is: a man who genuinely wants to help his people, who will say never again, and who will kick ass, but WANTS to be better than his violenty groomy past. Someone whose taken things to an extreme.. but you can see after all he's been through WHY he got there.

MLB is a great second episode. While To Me My X-Men was a great intro, showing off Cyclops and Storm properly and setting everything up, MLB is where the series starts to really cook, bringing in the complex themes. While x-men media hasn't been afraid to talk about race or opression using the mutnat metaphor, 97 gets into how endless it feels.. how it just KEEPS coming and how hard Xavier's dream of coexistance is. It feels extra relevant after Disney's sacking of the shows creator for being this blunt and the horrifying results of the election, that this isn't new. History repeats or as behind the bastards host and guy I deeply respect Robert Evans put sit "It's cool how people don't learn anything ever"

And while other episodes rip right into it better, I like MLB for doing that and being an outstanding magneto character piece. He's trying to honor his absent friend.. but he's still an arrogant dick. Being an x-man dosen't take erik's arrogance away. He' still smug as hell as he asks why the x-men never bothered to send the morlocks to saftey in genosha now it's a free country and not a hell hole, his mutant power still kills fascists.. he's just tampering it down to maiming them. He's doing a noble thing.. but in the most dickish most magneto way possible and its easy to see why the x-men aren't easy with thier new leader.

The Rogue's stuff's better here as she encourages him to pull his head out of his ass and we hadn't got to "They say i'm robbing the cradle but she's robbing the grave" yet.

Magneto gets a grand stage to lay out his ideas when the UN comes to arrest him. Because they can do that apparently. He stops all their helicopters and makes it clear it was a stupid move to not magneto proof thier helicopters. Seriously you.. you guys are HQ'd in new york same as the x-men and live in a universe with the x-men, the avengers, the fantastic four and spider-man all in it. You didn't think to have quinjets or hulkbuster tanks to take on the most dangerous man alive?

It's only for the grace of proving he's changed their not all reduced to a pile of blood and metal and Magneto agrees to the trial.. but defends what he's done: he did what he had to, he's seen the holocaust, and he has one simple code: never again. He calls them out for their hypocricy, for the show trial nature of things.

Then the racists hit. Beau really just said "let's have a january 6th allegory" and i'm here for it with the friend sof humanity storming the UN. When a racist on the panel wonders whyt heir trying to killh im Magneto says it simply "your giving the monster a trial"

The x-men defend and we get a great scene with the FOH's leader the x-cutioner, a bigot who loudly complains about how mutants won't just shut up and how HE has problems but he isn't whining.. to Scott Summers. The may whose dad got shot up into space, grew up an orphan, can't look anyone in the eye, had his wife die twice, and had a weird man fuck with his life and will have him do it again. What i'm saying with this is fuck your first world problem and it's telling real bigots latched onto the scene missing the point.

We also get a neat subplot as Maddy goes into labor. I love her shenanigans with logan: making his car a convertible and the intimal confrontation with him thinking "he's here" means apolcaypse or something and having to be told "the baby you idiot". I also love Rogue (who brought Cyke to the hopsital mid insurrection) sapping a racist doctor's knowledge to deliver the baby. Brilliant stuff.

But the true heart is what happens. While the x-men valiantly do their best, the x-cutioner has a nasty suprise: a neutralizer gun. He aims it at erik.. and Storm takes it. And Erik.. does not take it well, watching a strong, powerful mutant who had done nothing but try to help people crawl weekly in shock he says: ENOUGH and gives the speech above, lifting the un council and the x-cutioner into the sky and making clear he could kill them all if he wanted.. but he won't. They don't have to like mutantkind.. but they should be allowed to exist. He's trying to be better. please don't let him down. Sadly.. they do. But as swerve said, story for another time.

3. Souls in Darkness (Legend of Vox Machina S3 Episode 12)

 "Percy... this isn’t how I wanted to do this. And gods know all this attention would appall you but... That day with you in Syngorn when you stood next to me and allowed me to be a part of something that you hold dearest. I... I was so proud. You stood up for me and I... I lied to you. I lied to myself. I hate that I was too afraid to admit it. You’re fascinating, and... obstinate, and... and the cleverest man I know. You have to find your way back to us Percy. Because the truth is... I love you, darling. My heart... It's yours."

As I alluded too in the "hell to pay" entry, the last act of season 3 was bumpy. They tried to thread a lot of stuff together, and while ther'es awesome highs like the battle with thordak, the period between that and the finale was rocky, splitting everyone up for time and not working like it had before.

What did was the ending, which also ended a cleverly addded subplot: in both the original game and the show Percy, my baby boy, dies. He forgave his arch enemy Ana Ripley, let go of vengance.. and got a bullet for it. While his ressurection was frought in the game, with Ashley Johnson coming in special just to make sure pike could help him feeling guilty for the team not having a healer when percy died, here.. it sticks. The team dosen't have anyone who can do it and Percy is dead. Granted most of us felt this woudln't stick.. but I applaud the decision to let it ride: to let that pain fester: Vex feels guilt for not admitting how she felt, pushing him away due to her daddy issues, and Scanlan regrets not being there to help.

The good news is the series had a loop hole. Our heroes get Anna Ripley's gun from her corpse and Vax slowly hears something inside. Percy is alive.. but in a horrifying twist (one hinted at in the show but shown in full here) Orthax, the shadowy ghoul that he accidnetly made a deal with and who slowly possed him over season 1, has him.

Our heroes have to wrap up other buienss first and the first act finishes where the last episode: Raishan has played our heroes, their alliance being so she could get thordak's corpse, escape her curse and become a necrodragon.. and wanting vengance against the ashari, she traps Keyleth with her. Thankfully kiki's grown as a person and awesomely dispatches one of the series best villians (a truly awesome performance by cree summers) by turning into an earth titan then using Raishan's own corpse to pump her new body full of curse and blow her up real good.

This part is excellent, finally giving Keyleth some shine (as did the previous two eps) and letting her get revenge on her tormentor who played her friends the best way possible. She and Vax alsof inally confirm it's offical. Thank god.

But it's not over as during the fight Vax used the pepperbox.. and heard percy inside. Percy is alive, he's trapped... and his brother in law's gonna go save him. As usual for the show ressurection is not easy. It dosen't seem easy in dnd, but in fiction you can't just have casual resurrection without death meaning nothing. And unless you question that like x-men did in the krakoan age, the good and bad of it it can be tedious. So instead Ressurection is really hard.. especially since the person they had do one last time is now dead. RIP Cash, Will please do more voice acting.

So we get a tense sequence as PIke restores the body and the party has to keep it alive while Vax dives into hell despite his matron warning him he will be punished if he spits in the face of death. But Percy is family.. and Vax won't abandon him.

Orthax's realm is helish: all of percy's previous targets are horrifying corpse and percy himself is stuck ona n eternal forge bereft of memories while Vax risks being stuck there too... until.. Vex reaches out... confessing to percy as quoted above in Laura Bailey's most beautiful bit of acting series wide. It's love that saves Percy from his own guilt and his worst enemy, and it's the love of a brother that gets him out of there as Vax pulls his brother out.

The ending is also joyous.. likely because they didn't know if they'd get ot do season 4, so rather than scanlan bitterly parting ways, he plans to leave with his daughter and everyone else decides to take a break from being a party: Vex and Percy are going back to whitestone, Vax is going to help his girlfriend finish the Armente they need to actually define in show, and Pike and Grog are gonna.. go save people they guess. We get a truly beautfiul song to close this out, Circle the World, which shows off Scanaln's evelopment and is a nice parting song... and an omnius cliffhanger shows we're not done.

Souls in darkness is an episode that serves as the perfect caper to everything that's come. Like the end of season 1 the final conflict isn't the big bad.. but saving one of their own. Vox Machina is ultimately about a family of choiec, a group who loves each other even if they'll verbally tear each other apart and this a beautiful showcase of that and of my favorite characters. I'll truly miss them when the series wraps.

2. Night of the Hunters (Batman Caped Crusader S1 Episode 4)

"He'll Talk"

Night of the Hunters is a perfect episode, one that had a damn good shot at being the year's best episode. Night of the Hunters takes everything that makes Caped Crusader great, condenses it into half an hour and the results are fantastic.

Previously on Batman Caped Crusader

Also Catwoman was there and made the mistake of humiliating detectives Bullock and Flask. In this show Bullock isn't the gruff man who should probably still be fired but at least believes in justice guy we know and love from the comics and BTAS, but a corrupt monster, working closely with his partner detective Flass , a big piece of shit in any medium. The two gladly bring up the idea of roughing up suspects as their go to, inform for Thorne and Penguin and genuinely just suck. So when Selina Kyle got off on a technicality and made the two look stupid, not to mention scratching Bullocks face, the two decided to murder her. Batman had to stop it and kicked some cop ass, hooray, but did so on film to make sure Catwoman actually went to jail this time.

This being the alternate 40's, cops are viewed with actual respect and not as an orginzation that BADLY needs reform filled with people who think their gods I tell you gods who will arrest striking workers because they were created for the upper class. Thankfully Caped Crusader is aware of this irony and is one of the best depections of police i've seen: a few people, not suprisingly of color are trying, but the bulk of the system is corrupt, horrible and more than willing to resort to force.

Still the good side is the one that gets to try and catch the batman. Renee Montoya, who we talked about earlier, gets the task force head as her solution isn't throw wave after wave of her own men after them but clever tactics. She sets up fake crimes, and only fails because the Batman is one step ahead. It also turns out he's been reading thier strategies, as we find out in the most hilaroius scene in the show: Gordon is working late, goes into the task force room and finds batman and the two just.. sit there for a beat and drink in the absurdity, fully absorb this then the chase begins.

Montoya brings in an expert, Harleen Quinzel, her future girlfriend and the current Harley Quinn but the latters for an episode we're not talking about today. She explains Batman's biggest draw is someone who matches his freak: Super crime. The kinds that aren't easy for gpd. Masked bandits and such. Given he fights a ghost a few episodes after this and punched a clay man in the face a bunch in a previous entry on this list, she's not wrong.

Montoya has the obvious solution: fake a super criminal, a clever plan that doesn't get executed because Bullock and Flass go for the easiest , stupidest, bloodiest , fastest method: they essentially kidnap Firebug, an arsonist in a grey suit to burn down the east end.

Firebug is an also ran in the comics, here more resembling firefly, but with a disturbing and wonderfully horrific twist: He's a meek unassuming man... who assumes everyone would be happier in the flame. In the second best sequence of the episode, he imagines everyone as happy animated flames, the joy they'll have consumed by the fire. It's the best version of either character i've seen and it's fucking horrific.

Helping this is his voice actor, the legendary Tom Kenny. While Tom has gotten a lot of flexibility in his long career, this is one of his best rolls, which says something. The meekness, the tired way he is.. then the expressiveness when Firebug gets to do his "sacred duty" it's truly haunting.

The climax is horrific and perfect: Flass and Bullock hyjack a bunch of swat members with one goal: kill batman. They don't care that Firebug is killing a bunch of innocent people, their an acceptable casualty. Gordon and the Bat disagrees with Jim going in HIMSELF to save the people whose beat he once walked, the poor and desperate.. and works with Bruce working in concert with him.

Sadly this leaves Firebug vunerable. He's out of fire.. but Flass can't let him squel and tells bullock to kill him. And in the series best shot, he does.. killing him and standing stone faced in the window, any hope of redemption gone. Gordon tries to fire him.. but all the public sees is a hero cop.. and Gordon is left broken wondering what the hell his purpose is. Night of the Hunters is a dark, brutal episode of television and one of my faviorites.

Masquerade (Hazbin Hotel S1, episode 4)

"It's time to loose your self loathin, excuse yourself let hope in. Play your card be who you are, a loser , just like.." "Are they fuckin singin?!"

This glorious #1 was a surprise to me. While I expected Masquerade, and Hazbin Hotel in general to place, I didn't expect it to win. I'd pegged other episodes for that spot.. but when thinking things out, comparing episode... this was the winner. As good as night of the hunters is, as close as this race was... Hazbin always came out on top and after three previous years the Hellaverse as a whole has finally gotten it's flowers.

Hazbin Hotel is excellent. Season 1 may wove way faster than it should've for space reasons, but damn if it wasn't a good time. The songs were all beautiful, the cast was perfection, and the visuals gorgeous, while the characters were as loveable, complicated and in in most of our villians cases intentionally punchable in the best way as Helluva's cast. It's a messy good time and I ca'nt wait to see where it goes this year.

Masquerade is the standout and it' shelped by narrowing focus. While it ends up being important to the series as a whole, Masquerade has nothing to do with the overarching plot of Original Fuckboy Adam's imminent genocide, being an intimate character piece dealing with everyone's faviorite power bottom at rock bottom Angel Dust.

Masquerade is a rough watch: most of the time we see Angel, it's him confidently deflecting, making sex jokes and doing sexual harassment to Husk. Yet episode 2 gave us peaks behind the mask: he's geninely hurt when Charlie seemingly writes him off (If not unfairly) and we see just how horrible his pimp/slavemaster/general piece of shit valentino is to him, emotoinally gaslighting him and planning to murder everyone in the hotel over Angel daring to.. live somewhere else.

Valentino is one of the vilest characters in animation, and I don't exagerate there. The show does need to better ballance his comedic moments with his monstrosity, but in my eyes at least the monstrosity is done chillingly realistically: he's a gaslighting monster who has hold over someone he treats as a sex slave, assaults regularly and abuses his power over. When Charlie makes the innocent mistake of trying to help angel get his work hours down to be at the hotel more, it goes horribly, gettiing angel punished for it.

And it's a tragedy that's welld one: You get why Charlie blunders ont o a porn set. Angel hasn't told her HOW bad shit is, why he's doing this, and is doing his shit of dissocating to avoid having to deal with the nightmare he's trapped in. He likely dose'nt WANT to talk to Charlie about it and bring his truama and pain into the one safe place he has.

Yet by not doing so.. Charlie just assumes he's doing this to be angel and not because he has to, and dosen't grasp the depths of her friends abuse. She does get to oggle a hellhound though. So that's nice. But Charlie blundering leads to angel getting hit and while Charlie prepares to leave Valentio a stain on the floor Angel' desperately tells her to go. He's so scared of this monster that even a quick way out won't save him while Charlie is left broken not understanding WHAT she di dwrong. Which.. was nothing intentional. She fucked up, sure, but she's a sheltered 20 something who while meaning well, has no real concept of how fucked up hell truly is to it's core. It's her first taste that the world is more complciated and fucked up than she can imagine and she can't just.. save angel. I Mean killing val might've done that but we dont' know how soul contracts work and I suspect neither does charlie. You don't blame either perosn: Angel's deeply traumtized, self loathing and is likely afraid val will hurt his best friend, or worse, take her awya form him, and Charlie is a naive idiot. She's not without fire to her, adam learned that the hard way, but a common theme is Charlie's lack of actual experince hampers her goals.

So we get Poison, one of the shows best sequences and a great song.. ut a sequence I'll likely NEVER watch again as Angel is assaulted, and talks about the hell he's in, blames himself for it, and his nightmare of a life is sexualized for the cameras.. while the actual abuse of valentio is shadowy and horrific. Valentino delights in parading angel around as his property and using him how he sees fits and i'ts utterly breaking to watch.

Also hard to watch is Angel's attempt to cope: he wants to get drunk, then hits on Husk who resonably, finally has enough. His main reason is simple: he knows i'ts a defense mechanism. He knows the angel he sees at the hotel and the harassment is annoying less because it's.. harassment (something to unpack next season maybe as... i'ts an uneasy message at best) nad more because he can tell angle's faking it to get by and it pisses him off. Like Charlie Husk makes a mistake.. but you can't blame him. He shoudln't have to get constantly hit on by someone to make that person feel better and it's likely only gone on this long because Charlie is so naive she likely dosen't get this is bad as it's not the grosser sexual harassment she's dealt with and husk seems fine.

So angel storms out and with Charlie broken (adorably so but still aww) Vaggie orders Husk to go fix this. Her blaming him isn't okay but I get her logic: while blaming husk is stupid, sending him is really the only option as he's the only person who can resonably save angel from himself right now. Charlie's breaking down, Vaggie's having to make sure Charlie dosen't break down further, Husk is the only one. And it's telling that while ti's an order, given how he usually shrugs those off.. he doe sit.

And it saves Angel from more assault as Angel gets hammered and fully intends to let a bunch of shark men assault him repeadtely which is horrific.. and when Husk saves him he snaps, asking why. In a truly heartbreaking moment that's Blake Roman's best acting so far he reveals he does it to escape, that if he's broken Val may not want him anymore. And in this moment of vunerablity.. Husk actually responds and comforts him.

And the character suddenly gets a thousand lairs as we learn his backstory: He was once an overlord, but his gambling addiction meant he ended up enslaved to Alastor. And as worn out shell.. he recognizes himself in Angel. It's likely why he was so hard on him.. he could see himself and simply wanted Angel to actaully be himself.. and now he sees why he wasn't, he helps.

And he helps with the season's second best song. I mean.. Still Gone is fucking fantastic and had the rest of the episode not just been okay, episode 2 would be here too. But Looser Baby is the series breakout, an endlessly applicable song with a great message: that it's okay to be a mess, that you can be better.

Granted i'm biased: My love of Keith David is something I don't hide and not only does this episode let him shine he gets to sing. In fact David took the roll entirely becaue he wanted to sing more, and why it's taken this long is beyond me. The man did one of the most iconic disney villian songs period, let him sing.

Viv does.. and the results are glorious. Partly because we get to see Keith david sing thigns like "your a fucked up little whiny bitch" and "your a power bottom at rock bottom". He starts tearing into angel.. but the point is not "you fucking suck and will continue to suck" it's "just because your in a bad place, dosen't mean you have to be alone in it". As david dreamiily croons

"There was a time I thought that no one could relate, to the grusome ways in which i'm damaged. But letting walls down it can sometime set you straight, we're all livin in the same shit sandwitch"

It's a lesson I needed to learn: your not broken, you can heal, and your not alone if you can find someone like you whose also in pain. Its a joyous ode to how things may suck.. but you can still love yourself despite the flaws you need to work on. It's help by buttery smooth animation as we see Husk, whose been mostly drunk and sullen in a corner, move an dgroove the whole time, in beautiful ways, using his umbrella and get some great neon colors cumilating in that beautful shot above. And some shark death. Always shake your tails before the big musical number.

The ending is also shockingly sweet. Charlie tries to blubbering apologize.. and Angel has grown, having realized he can be loved and dosne't have to shove people away to survive or break himself.

"Charlie it's fine I get it, thanks for carrin about me"

Her blubbering after and her girlfriend putting her to bed is fucking adorable, but this episode itself is fucking amazing. A truly heartrending story... that somehow has a happy ending and a turning point in who angel is and him and husk's relationship that's realistic, and well earned. And viv well earned our number one spot. Congradulations Spindlehorse, keep it up and i'll see you next year

For all you fine folks, thanks for reading, follow me here on bluesky for more nonsense and remember: I'm pullin for ya we're allin this together.

[annimator]

Recently, it’s come to my attention that Disventure Camp’s been getting a bunch of copyright strikes for their episodes all thanks to an ex-employee that was lacklustre at their job.

Said ex-employee started contacting toon boom and made claims about the animators behind DC using pirated copies of their software. And Toon Boom in all their “infinite wisdom” took these claims at face value and started striking multiple episodes.

With the main channel posting Disventure Camp (Odd Nation Cartoons) being set to sadly shut down in 7 days, it’ll mean Disventure Camp’s gonna lose a good chunk of the revenue needed to help continue the show, the budget for the current season will have to be halved, and a bunch of collaborators’ contracts will have to be terminated.

They’ve recently set up 2 new channels, that’ll be the home for the four main seasons of DC (including the new one that’s been posting new episodes as of November 30th) and the spinoff respectively.

So yeah, long story short is that a indie webseries is getting unfairly strikes thanks to a fuckass ex-employee.

And the reason I’m bringing all this up is because I love this series and what it has to offer

As someone that’s watched BFDI & Inanimate Insanity for most of their life, animated reality shows aren’t anything new to me. But what makes Disventure Camp different from those two shows is that 1) The characters aren’t sentient objects, and are actual humans in the vain of Total Drama, & 2) There is a lot of LGBTQ+ representation within the show.

Like, I have a drafted post that essentially boils down to me rambling about all of it as somewhat of a love letter to the show. But I genuinely think the LGBT representation in the show is great considering how most of couples in the show are same-sex & have healthy communication, there’s transmasc, transfem, and non-binary representation through characters like Aiden, Natalia, & Tristan respectively, and most of the LGBTQ+ characters come from varying nationalities.

Heck, the co-creators (Jared Madrigal & Robert Casetellanos) are actually married to each other irl, and the two characters that are based off of them are canonically together. That’s really wholesome :D

I’m a huge sucker for canon LGBTQ+ representation & relationships so this series is a comfort show to me with how much it offers, and it really saddens me to see that it’s been going on hard times.

So yeah! Go watch Disventure Camp to help support it ‘cause it really needs it right now! And don’t ask about why some of the thumbnails look kinda sus :D

[the-sage-libriomancer]

i try not to overthink the worldbuilding in Scoob and Shag because it's a thin premise that can't withstand much scrutiny (especially stuff relating to Toone), but i did have some thoughts that don't blow up the story's logic, so.

-first of all, the concept of "cartoon characters = actors" is inherently fascinating. especially since a lot of the actors seem to be government workers as well, implying the government used their own staff along with professional actors (like Yoge). what was the criteria? did they just have to look human? did Toone write show premises around whatever "characters" they had available? maybe that would explain some illogical plots and clunky lines in saturday morning cartoons - the actors didn't have much acting experience, and for all we know the writers were entry-level accountants.

-ballyhoo is also fascinating. it's basically a living metaphor for how an audience can influence their media: a toon's ballyhoo is directly empowered by how much love the human population gives them, just like how enough love of a fictional character makes them popular enough to keep appearing in media. it increases their strength (bc they have influence over the world) and extends their lifespan (bc they don't "die" until people stop caring about them), and all the ballyhoos are named after tv/movie terms like Picture in Picture or Jump Cut, implying that using tv/movie screens as a medium influences what sort of abilities they can get.

-the fact that too much ballyhoo causes you to instinctively, uncontrollably break the fourth wall is super fun and super fascinating and (as Bugs demonstrates) super horrifying. too much energy from meta sources causes the confines of your narrative to break down, leaving you in a weird spot in-between your world and a world you can't see.

-i can't stop thinking about The Inspector's backstory. it's just so tragic. born an android, given a literal soulmate shortly after creation, constantly looked down upon for not having a ballyhoo, losing his soulmate to old age, then losing his home to a war caused by the very thing you were devalued for not having. Bugs said that a toon's ballyhoo can extend their lifespan (likely bc a character who's beloved by fans doesn't really die), so the fact that Penny got old and died means she wasn't popular enough with the humans, which makes sense - Inspector Gadget is the iconic one after all. he's the one who everyone loved and remembered, and it was completely useless to him because he didn't have ballyhoo. no wonder he never smiles.

-i just realized that the Inspector was forced to leave Penny's grave behind when he escaped Toone. he can never visit her again :(

-speaking of screen partners, i love thinking about how the dynamics in cartoon series translate into real life and vice versa. it's a chicken and egg question: did certain characters land roles together because they were friends, or did they become friends because they worked together as actors? were Spongebob and Patrick actually buddies? did Felix the Cat work with Mick back in the beginning days of sending broadcasts? what's Scooby's professional opinion on Scrappy-Doo?

-(i wonder if you could justify the short period in Scooby-Doo history where Shaggy and Scooby were the only members of the gang regularly appearing in shows as "the government needed a way to keep the dangerous terrorists busy so they literally Could Not let those two stop appearing in things" asjhshbjahsjahsja)

-i I love that all the commanders are cartoon characters who were so popular/beloved that they seeped into (usamerican) popular culture: Mickey Mouse, Homer Simpson, Bugs Bunny, etc. They were the most powerful because their cartoons became the powerhouses of their respective eras - you can't get more loved than them.

-i wonder if the Simpsons were basically an ageless family back on Toone because they're still popular even after 40+ years, halting their aging. actually, i bet a lot of toons stopped aging after ballyhoo became commonplace. if your lifespan was defined by how loved you were by a fickle human audience, how do you think that affected relationships? it must've been hard if you had a tangible, literally life-affecting gauge of how popular you are according to alien beings you've never met.

-i was thinking about why Kermit is included as an mc when he's a muppet and the other toons are strictly western animation characters. the doylist explanation is that the author hadn't decided to limit the media used (similar to how Mario and Goku appear in early episodes), but i have a watsonian theory. i think Kermit is from the old Muppet Babies saturday morning cartoon, all grown up. he might've been a child actor who stayed with the government even after aging out, possibly explaining why there aren't any other muppets: they left the business and probably didn't escape Toone as a result.

-relatedly: my headcanon is that traditional (i.e. not toon-led) animation IS possible in this universe, and any animated project not usamerican is created that way. so anime is to the toons as a cg character is to humans, and the Goku pic is the equivalent of...i dunno, a photo of Avatarized Jake Sully lol.

-the fact that anime characters apparently didn't exist on Toone is probably for the best. can you imagine how powerful characters like Sasuke and Bakugo would be lmao.

-lastly, i was thinking about the old gods (or whatever they are). i'm pretty sure they're beings who exist behind the fourth wall. when Dee is pulled into the purple one's domain, she at first sees it as a wide open area in space, but then she starts processing it as more of a glass cube, with one huge window screen, large tubes, and wires running through the floating spheres - not unlike being held inside a tv. the purple god even says that staying too long will cause her mind to "shatter under the weight of reality" which...i think discovering you're actually a fictional character in a webcomic would do that to you. so the gods "interfering" is them going against the story's narrative to give the characters a boost. (this might tie into who Bugs is talking to when he/she addresses the camera - it's not technically us, it's the gods behind the wall.)

i have other thoughts but uh. this post is probably long enough.