#i just like watching animals and filming them

[paper-starz]

S-M-I-L-E Everyday!

OH THESE WERE SO FUN TO DESSSIGNNNN!! AAAA THEYRE MORE 80s NOWWWWW

Ehehehe catnap comes with his own lil nightcap and pillow!!

Lore below!

The Smiling Critters were Playtime Co.'s most popular, if not most well-known toyline ever produced in the factory. First appearing on greeting cards in the late 1970s, they were suggested to Playtime Co. in 1981 by the chief of marketing, Jimmy Roth, to turn these beloved greeting card characters into lovable, huggable toys. This suggestion then became a reality after Playtime Co. produced the first ever Smiling Critter plushies in 1983.

In the summer of that same year, the Smiling Critters took the world by storm. From selling their own books and magazines, to even debuting on television with specials like “The Smiling Critters and the Forest of Frowns.” and “The Smiling Critters’ Winter Wonderland.”

By 1985, not only did the Smiling Critters receive a TV series that aired for 4 years, but they had theatrical releases that became the highest-grossing animated film at the time of its release.

By 1983 to 1987, the Smiling Critters sold over 60 million plushies and gained over 3 billion dollars in sales during the 80s. With such a commercial success, Playtime Co. introduced 2 of the most popular Smiling Critters, Dogday and Catnap, into Playtime Park in 1985!

When asked why they didn’t just introduce the entire cast of critters, Leith Pierre, head of innovation at Playtime Co. responded with “Well, introducing all of these toys at once might overwhelm our staff and our guests. Both of these toys are one of our newest and most experimental creations, so, if everything goes well, then we do have plans of releasing the rest of the Smiling Critters into Playtime Park. However, our guests’ safety and happiness is our utmost concern here at Playtime Co., and we prioritize that above all else.”

The two critters each had their own little place to take care of. Dogday, being the leader of the Smiling Critters, was in charge of watching the younger guests and making sure everyone was having a great time at the park. Catnap, on the other hand, was in charge of Home Sweet Home, a quaint little area built for kids and parents who just need some time to relax and take a break from all of the ruckus at the park. Home Sweet Home has many beds for little ones to rest and even quiet activities such as drawing and reading for kids and people to enjoy (and with such affordable pricing, who could ever say no?) Catnap can even read to the little ones and for those who have trouble sleeping, Catnap comes equipped with Playtime Co.’s “Sleepy Lavender Scent” to help you relax (guaranteed to knock even the most hyperactive of kids right out!!)

However, not everything was all sunshine and rainbows as tragedy struck in mid 1989. There was a factory error where all of the “Sleepy Lavender Scent” cans for the Catnap plushies were instead replaced with Poppy gas, making kids who owned this factory error experience vivid hallucinations, excessive sleep, and even nightmares. While all of the toys were recalled, this error followed them to Playtime Park, where Catnap was given that same gas. The Home Sweet Home incident occurred in 1989, devastating the Smiling Critters’ reputation. Because of these controversies, the Catnap toy was pulled from the lineup and all promotional material afterwards, and Playtime Park decommissioned Catnap soon after.

Since then, Playtime Co. has done its best to try and repair the Smiling Critters reputation, with Playtime Co. issuing an apology statement the following week. Currently, while the Smiling Critters are still sold in toy stores, they will never reach the popularity they once had in the 80s.

[justyourtypicalwriter]

Wondering if you have any headcanons for what jobs the kids pursued when they got older

Hi!!

So l actually haven't put much thought into this (I probably should) as I don't currently have a "post cannon" middle ground between the show and PC (pre-teen/teen/young adult) so I'll just give you their most used occupations in my "incredibly scuffed clashing with cannon" aus :)

Stan - Anything revolving around animals or child education. Veterinary, wildlife rescue/rehab, music teacher, world history teacher. I highkey pulled the world history one out of my ass. I just remembered all the epics and legends I learned in that course and I feel like Stan would be all over that

Kyle - Law, child psychology, music, art. Law for obvious reasons, yes follow in your fathers footsteps not because you want to be like him but because you want to be BETTER than him (sorry gang, I hate Gerald as much of some of yall hate Randy). Child Psychology is pretty widely accepted by everyone it sense for Kyle to want to help kids (add in watching his friends go through childhood trauma and not being able to do anything about it as a motivator and the story is chefs kiss) some of my Kyle's would KILL to have this job but I fuck them over a little to much and they can't (sorry bb, I love you I swear). Hear me out: slutty indie singer Kyle and his shitty band of childhood trauma repressors to challenge Crimson Dawn, PEAK rivals to lovers. I have no clue why but I’ve been chipping away at a starving artists au since May and bpd artist icon Kyle has lived rent free in my head ever since

Kenny - Paramedic, doctor, firefighter, scientist. I LIVE for Kenny getting high stakes jobs that match his high stakes life style so I feel he’d excel at jobs where he’d have to get creative on spot. I also adore the smart Kenny who still acts like a himbo thing. PC, he’s a smart little freak and I love that

Cartman - CEO or entrepreneur. I will always be a sucker for self made business man Cartman wether he’s an antagonist or protagonist. I think it adds so much to his character. Either he’s the antagonist and does some fucked up shit to the protagonist (typically Kyle or Butters let’s be so fr) and an issue for the plot is no one believes them since he’s held in such a good light by the community. OR the antagonist is a higher power and by helping the protagonist, his playing all his cards and risking loosing EVERYTHING

Butters - Baker. I’m sorry, he deserves all good things and the Vic Chaos plot doesn’t really do it for me. I want to give him a cute little bakery to just relax and decompress from that traumatic ass childhood

Craig - Astronomer, racing, detective, forensic pathologist. I feel like the first two are pretty self explanatory lmfaoo. And Kivea and acreekinthenight turned me on the other two. Craig having a high risk, stress heavy job really allows more character development and lore opportunities

Tweek - I’m guilty of criminally negligent my little meth addict and I think the only job I’ve given him is keyboardist for Crimson Dawn. Kinda wanna give him a gun and see what happens

Clyde & Tolkien - Film/screen play writing, club owners. Now these aren’t the only jobs I write for them. I’ve got plenty of separate ones but ever since I started the SDAU, I live for them working together in the film industry. And they’re literally THE club owners. Chaotic as fuck but the

Jimmy - Comedian. Let the king keep his crown bro. I could never cut the comedy aspect out

Wendy - Something in politics or child education. Wendy for president man, she’d have my vote. Also I could picture her and Kyle working at the same school. They’d gossip so much smh

Bebe - SALON OWNER BEBE MY LOVE!!! Let her be an independent business woman and still kind of a bimbo

[kaccvcate]

This may surprise my fans, but in my life I often find myself to be a very unloved person, despite my best efforts. Perhaps that's why I feel the need to defend the unloved and controversial. Somehow more provocative now than when it was made in 1946, my favorite hill to die on is Song of the South. The last time I wrote about this movie I was 19, and although I had a fairly adequate defense, I believe now I have a much more nuanced understanding of history, and can do it more justice.

When this film was made, the United States army had only recently been desegregated, and the Deep South was still under apartheid. It's based on a book featuring stories collected by a white author who worked alongside black laborers on plantations, controversial when it was published in 1881 for the dignity it gave to "folk stories" (how some people pronounce "non-Christian religion.") I haven't read the book, but like it or not, racists hated it when it was published, and that means it was a daring and revolutionary piece of literature. For those who are not familiar with United States history, slaves were legally granted their freedom in 1864. I could get into the fact that slavery is still alive and well in United States prisons, perpetuated by racist laws targeting certain ethnicities, but that is a whole nother can of worms.

The script was written by Dalton Raymond, who had actually lived in the south, and Maurice Rapf, a Jewish communist. Some parts of Rapf's draft had to be toned down for fear of censorship, but the whole movie is reflective of his touch. The black actors are the only authentically southern characters, the white actors were all Hollywood people (and as a red person living here in Mississippi I can tell you exactly why.)

The most important part of this film is the animated sequences depicting myths about the character Br'er Rabbit. Many people see race as an issue of black and white, but reality is a lot more complicated. In reality, many natives of all nations were sold into slavery by their friends and family. A lot of black people are actually native as well as African. Specifically the stories that Uncle Remus tells are Muskoke in origin, and I know this because my great grandmother told them to me, and she never saw this movie. James Baskett tells the stories with familiar ease, he performs the voice acting for the majority of the characters. This means he was intimately familiar with the stories, and judging by his accent, I would say he is probably Muskoke, which means he is the same race as me. The movie centers around his phenomenal performances. Over and over, the black actors are more effective in their roles, but due to their race only a few of them were given the opportunity to perform in other movies.

Some have attacked this movie for the characters talking as if they're "stupid," which is incredibly offensive since the black actors have clearly been allowed the freedom to write their own lines, they speak very naturally and are written with complete dignity. Simply I would be able to tell if a honky or Jew had written fake dialect for them, and I've watched the movie with a black friend from rural Georgia, who emphatically confirmed it was how his family spoke when he was a child. Multiple actors have distinctive Muskoke accents. The stories themselves are about animal characters outwitting each other competitively, and have a lot of wisdom in them (in my humble opinion.) In Asian cultures "zen" is celebrated for its superficial simplicity, which reflects enormous depth, but I suppose native americans are just "stupid." People are often trained to think of unique dialects as being indicative of less “education,” but people are learning constantly even when they aren’t reading books or speaking in European accents. To reduce your estimation of a person’s intelligence based on accent alone is racist, whether your skin is black or white or anything else.

Many people attack the movie for portraying the black workers singing, as it makes them look happy. I don't know how to approach this, as the fact is that songs were a vital part of the work day back then, and still are today, regardless of how happy you are to be there. Maybe this is just my cultural understanding. People also inaccurately assume that the black characters are enslaved, simply because they're living on a plantation. The unfortunate truth is that after black people were freed from slavery, absolutely nothing was done to help them in any way, and so many chose to stay where they were if it was nice enough, which is the situation portrayed in the film. The unfairness of the dynamics between the characters due to their race or income is the center of the plot. The movie also features poor white characters, which is accurate to reality as, at risk of stating the obvious to some, many white people also suffer from colonization and most never owned plantations. (Yes, even in Georgia.) On my Scottish side I am descended from slaves sold to American colonizers by the English, who colonized Scotland first, for example. People of all colors and nationalities have taken advantage of colonialism and slavery for all of history, including native americans and Africans who sold their comrades to European conquistadors, Jewish people who owned slave ships, and so on. Even in some cases Asian people bought slaves for their plantations in the American south (this won't come as a surprise to anyone Asian, as slavery is still common in many countries and not limited to prisoners as in the U.S.) It's a complex situation that can't be simplified into "white people did this to black people," as convenient as that would be.

Walt Disney had this movie premiere in Atlanta specifically to make a statement. The theater was segregated, as I mentioned previously, and the black actors weren't allowed to see the screening. They also were forced to stay at a separate hotel. Walt announced the movie, and walked out, leaving a theater full of empty seats - black actors comprise the majority of the cast, and again are the only authentically southern characters.

I've shown this film to lots of native friends, "black" and "white," and many were perplexed as to how the film could be considered racist. I think the misunderstanding is largely due to divisive propaganda. To judge a work of art as intensely cooperative as a movie by the actions of one individual is a little reductive, but it's true Walt Disney was a flawed person. He had as recently as 1941 gone through a massive strike at his animation studio, as he was treating workers extremely unfairly, not to mention his unfortunate racial disability (being white.) And we won’t even get into his friend Leni Riefenstahl today. But just because he wasn't a devout communist, doesn't mean he wasn't also a daring and revolutionary artist. People’s actions aren’t any more black and white than their ethnicities. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the very first feature-length cel animated film, released in 1937, less than ten years before Song of the South. Less than ten years previously, people didn't think a feature length animated film would be watchable, and if you watch some short films released before then, you'll see exactly why. Maybe he didn’t see ripping off his employees in California as being related to apartheid in the south, or maybe artists he respected and admired quitting their jobs made him open his eyes to discrimination more broadly. Perhaps the events of World War II were a factor in his decision making. It’s hard to know, but I’ll never stop loving a movie that so beautifully portrays the characters I first learned about from my great grandmother.

[mama-qwerty]

Uhhh . . .

This is the problem with trying to translate an artistic style into a more realistic one. They all have completely lost their charm. Now they just look like lizards. Stormfly and Meatlug look TERRIBLE. Hookfang has always been the most 'dragon' looking of them all while still keeping his own style, but now he just looks . . . generic.

This absolutely did not need to be made, and the fact that they stripped the dragons of all their expressive personality to suit the "realistic" look--even though all the vikings are still dressed in the ridiculous horned helmets of their cartoonish versions--is ridiculous.

You'll pry the animated version from my cold, dead hands. And I will continue my streak of never watching a live action version of a beloved animated film. Between this and Lilo and Stitch, it's obvious studios are obsessed with stomping all over childhood memories, and shoving already well-loved movies to the side, for the sake of a few bucks.

Wait, since we’re already talking about bad live action CGI, can I rant about the dragons in the live action HTTYD?

Graphically, they look fine. But they’ve lost all their charm for the sake of realism. The original dragons had such expressive faces and an intentionally ugly charm to them. But other than Toothless (who has his own problems of losing his bite for cute appeal), the Terrible Terror and maybe the Red Death, they all look too… I don’t know if generic is the right word? But they feel more toothless, pun not intended

Hell, they took two post-HTTYD1 dragons and made them look worse. These are genuinely undoubtedly more generic than their originals

have you seen the dragons in the stage musical? everything should be practical effects forever

[ratmonky]

have an inspection for my apartment tomorrow morning, my last day at my small ass uni apartment is today and i'll be doing my last bit of cleaning!!

i literally have nothing else in here other than my new laptop that i only do editing with so i spent last night and my morning just now writing lol

i've partially finished my dbd chapter (4k+ words atm) but it introduces another killer that the reader will be paired up with and the next segment is the michael myers' trial!! so my question is--- would you rather to have me post it now or after i've also written michael's trial? (might take a week or two to write and post michael's trial, if i post it now you'll have another chapter within the next month)

was gonna make a poll but i like to interact personally so let me know in the comments heh <3

i'll make it easy so you can copy paste your answers like this:

i waited 3+ years for michael i CANNOT wait any longer

i waited 3+ years for michael i can wait longer

[yumemiruuuu]

Mu Qing: (scoffing) You don’t even know my favorite color

Feng Xin: (in deep thought)

Feng Xin: The color of my eyes

Mu Qing: …

Mu Qing: You are actually so dramatic

Mu Qing: My favorite color will never be “Shit Brown”

[hilacopter]

weird to me whenever people say that the disney live action remakes are made to make a buck off the adults who grew up with the originals. because those are usually the people we see hating them and in my experience as someone with a gen alpha sister the target audience is kids who haven't seen the originals and are just used to cgi slop.

[canisalbus]

Hopefully this isn't too weird but I love the way you draw hands, it's like the way you draw them seem just as expressive as the faces on the characters, I just love how they look and I hope I get there someday (if you have any tips please share but if not that's okay!)

I love your art and characters and how you draw their expressions/poses, it's all so nice!

Not weird at all, I'm very flattered! Hands have become extremely important to me, I tend to put a lot of effort in trying to get them look just right. I'm still not where I want to be with them but improving nonetheless. If you ask me, a thoughtfully and intently drawn hand can be almost as expressive as a character's face, just like you said. They're such complex and intricate structures with massive emotive and aesthetic potential, it'd be waste to not make use of them in art.

[dandeyrain]

i've been rotating the "this doesn't make any sense!" response to boy and the heron in my head and i wonder how much of it comes down to like...the kind of audience that engages with ghibli movies vs the kind of audience that mostly only engages with weird art movies vs the kind of audience that only really engages with blockbusters and marvel movies, and the overlap of those groups in the theater.

because, like, the boy and the heron is far and away more straightforward, from a plot perspective, than a lot of other Weird Extremely Personal Art Movies i've seen and love, but it IS a Weird Extremely Personal Art Movie even so. usually the only people seeing Weird Extremely Personal Art Movies, especially in theaters, are people who like that and expect that and have seen those types of films before and are therefore capable of engaging with them even when things aren't as clear as they'd be in an average blockbuster flick. like, nobody who only cares about Cinema to the extent of marvel movies and MAYBE john wick is going to see beau is afraid, and if they did they wouldn't have the tools to engage with such a dream-logicy movie. it would just be a weird thing that doesnt make sense to them, at least until they worked their media engagement muscles with other weird films. there's a lot of self-selection to the kind of person who usually sees these kind of movies.

while boy and the heron is weirder and more complex than a lot of other ghibli movies, as far as weird art films go it is incredibly, INCREDIBLY straightfoward. every weird plot point is explained very clearly to the audience, very little is up for interpretation from a strictly "what was the plot" point of view. boy loses mother. father remarries and moves the family. boy struggles to contend with grief. boy is pulled into a magical world by an old man who wants to use him. time is weird and fucked up in the magical world, but the movie is going to go out of it's way to highlight who's who and make it clear how the time travel works and the characters' relations to one another. the boy refuses to take over the magical world because he wants to live in the real world with the real people he loves. boy leaves the magical world having learned an important lesson about moving on. but the boy and the heron trusts its audience, doesn't handhold, and expects the audience to engage seriously and with focus to its plot and characters and stories.

a lot of people never watch movies like that! a lot of people are used to uncomplicated superhero movies and romcoms and that's it. the difference is that those people were never going to see beau is afraid, so the discussion about that movie instead comes from people who have the tools to engage with it. but because of the aesthetic-ification of ghibli, a lot of people who don't Do art films but are really into the aesthetics of cute little guys and girls in pretty dresses went to this art film and were confused that it was weird and dream-like and dark and strange and requires more of its audience than just passively watching.

anyway there's nothing wrong with not having the muscles to engage with weird art films, though i do think everyone should challenge themselves with the kind of stuff they watch. there's nothing wrong with preferring simple straightforward uncomplicated plotlines. but it is really interesting seeing people talk about the movie like it's insanely weird and doesnt make any sense meanwhile me and the friends i've chatted with about who DO have experience with this kind of film all feel insane because the movie is SO clear and SO straightforward by the standards we're used to. its just a neat crossover re: the kinds of movie fans that exist

[elvisqueso]

I am on some bullshit right now, bruh

[jackshiccup]

ok i'll admit gerard butler reprising his role as stoick for the httyd live-action is very cool that sounds like a fun time

[batsplat]

Sachsenring 2018

[shima-draws]

Holy shit this movie got REAL dark REAL fast

[noritaro]

since I watched the latest Transformers movies AND I can't go on reddit because of the blackout for recommendations

what cartoons and comics are good for a bitch who barely knows shit about the franchise cause Rise of the Beasts did NOT quench my Bumblebee adoration I had as a child

[hamable]

The whiplash of being emotional and thoughtful about Belle 2021 and then also thinking about Chikami Shinjiro and his fucking CROCS.

[adhd-merlin]

Ah someone else who has discovered the joys of Camelot (1967) a movie that I am completely normal about. Have you watched it? Because the delivery of the lines is everything and if you need someone to talk to about it I am, once again, completely normal about it. The scene where Lancelot and Arthur first meet?? A masterpiece in sharing a single braincell. And don't even get me started on the way Guenevere first treats Lancelot "have you jousted with humility lately". It's unapologetically at the top of my Arthuriana movie rank list and has gotten me to reread The Once and Future King

I have not watched the film yet!

I've been listening to the original cast recording on Spotify but, most importantly, I've read the book of the original Broadway production (1960 libretto) and I love it?? It's a delightful little read on its own, even without having watched the musical. (I want other people to read it please it's very funny I promise)

I guess the 1967 film script won't be identical to the libretto but I assume it's fairly similar.

The scene where Lancelot meets Arthur was hilarious it made me laugh out loud. Lancelot utter puzzlement ("Gone a-Maying, Your Majesty??"). Arthur's sudden self-consciousness.

And don't even get me started on the way Guenevere first treats Lancelot "have you jousted with humility lately"

I know!! Lancelot's grating self-righteousness coupled with his complete lack of self-awareness is so funny.

And I loved the gradual tone shift. It starts out so silly and the tragedy sneaks up on you — I thought Guinevere and Lancelot's affair might be played for laughs with an oblivious Arthur but no, it turns out he's fully aware of what's going on and he's forced to watch it unfold because he's powerless to stop it? and he loves them both and doesn't want any harm to come to them even as they betray him??

(He continues talking, looking from one to the other, feverishly — painfully) — Excuse me??

and King Pellinore is hilarious, he enters the scene wearing a monocle followed by a little mongrel named Horrid and talking like a character from a P. G. Wodehouse's novel. Extremely validating because when I read that chapter in Le Morte d'Arthur in which King Pellinore first makes an appearance my first question was "is he meant to be this funny?" and the answer from this script is a resounding YES.

I think I might perhaps watch the 1968 stage production first, merely because it's available for free on Youtube (at least in the UK).

I might try hunting for a free streaming link to the 1967 film, though I don't mind renting it if I can't find it.