#looney tunes esque ship. I LOVE it.

[bruhstation]

Can you elaborate more on Spencer wanting to make Henry dependent on him?

Would he do the same to Edward ? Like in the episode Edward the great?

Spencer trying to manipulate Gordon's friends?

spencer has some kind of weird toxic gay crush on henry. he's always liked men who are (in his opinion) in distress because they open an opportunity for spencer to swoop in and save them and feed his ego. henry's personality in spencer's head has been altered and dumbed down so severely to match his fantasies where spencer is henry's knight in shining armor who protects and takes care of him while henry is the damsel in distress who's waiting for big, strong spencer to take him away. this guy is a grade A freakster. henry just ignores spencer like he's scraps on a dinner plate and silently prays for his downfall.

after the events of the beast from sodor, spencer gained a microscopic smidge of respect towards henry. it's frankly embarrassing for him because henry's the one protecting spencer instead of the other way around like he envisioned. it doesn't stop him from annoying henry whenever he gets the chance. once, spencer left a note inside nwr 3's cab "call me if gordon's bothering you xxx-xxx-xxx <3 -S.S.G." and henry had to resist the urge to jump and dive head first onto the rocky road after finding it

speaking of gordon, spencer knows that if he DID manage to pull henry, gordon's gonna be extremely pissed off because 1) gordon is his cousin 2) gordon has been fumbling henry for around one and half a decade through gold dust-fueled mind-twisting situations yet they never ended up together and 3) spencer’s gonna have another insensitive stand up comedy material besides "dead siblings" and "dead father" which just excites spencer even more

edward isn't really spencer's type (wise, can stand his ground, etc) and he knows the older man can see right through him, so he's not interested in chasing after him. also henry will NEVER EVER return spencer's feelings mainly because he's just so annoying instead of the fact that spencer has ulterior motives for him and spencer will always remain having a one-sided crush/twisted infatuation/etc for henry

[devilsrecreation]

List of AU’S I came up with

Crack Hodari x Njano (They need a ship name: Hodano? Njari? Lizards in Love? idk)

Makuu-Kiburi role swap

Hyenas-Crocodile role swap

Pirate AU

High School AU

Actor AU

Piga is alive

Danganya is alive (nothing would really change much but I like to think he, Shupavu, and Njano are a trio)

Didn’t create this one per se, but Zootopia-esque AU (specifically Kenge in that universe)

These could technically count as au’s:

A world without Jasiri

A world without Kiburi

Ushari’s still alive

Ucheshi is the leader of the crocs instead of Makuu

Okay so I was listening to “Give a Little Guy a Chance” again (as you do) and I kept thinking about Ucheshi’s reaction and then I said “If Ucheshi were the leader, she’d immediately say yes”…which led to this au

Soooooo I have thoughts….

-She’d definitely be a little more cocky in this au. Not as cocky as Makuu or Kiburi, but she wouldn’t be above rubbing stuff in animals’ faces

-Her challenging Pua to a mashindano would be so funny tho. It starts off so civilized and then it’s Ucheshi pulling a Looney Tunes and tricking Pua into agreeing to fight her

-Ucheshi would have waaaay too much fun battling Pua. She treats it as if it were a game

-Like my in-universe hc for her, she’s not a villain by any means. I like to imagine her as a neutral character if anything; an unbiased participant if you will. She respects the circle of life most of the time but she’ll let her crocs take over all the watering holes

-Like in the Savannah Summit, a lot of the animals would assume she’s here to cause trouble when in actuality, she’s pretty chill

-No but her in that episode would be so funny cuz Kion and Simba are talking about her and she just casually butts in like

Kion: I think Ucheshi has more enemies than friends

Ucheshi: *pops her head in* In my defense, so does Bunga

Kion: What the-?!

-not her breaking the fourth wall at one point or another/j

“By Pua! Have a nice life! Hope you get more screentime!”

-Don’t be fooled, Makuu still has a role in the au. He’s mostly the one by her side supporting her

-I think Kiburi would be a little more respectful than he is with Makuu. Though their disagreements are still amusing to watch, especially with her using her title as an advantage

“Sorry, who’s the leader here?”

“Ucheshi-“

“Answer the question: who’s the leader?”

“You…”

“What was that?”

“You.”

“Oh really? Didn’t realize! 😁”

-That being said, he still challenges her to a mashindano and loses, which is admittedly still very hard on her

-Instead of Kiburi trying to hurt her like he does with Makuu, he repeatedly tries to get her to become evil

-Hodari would immediately become a part of the float after singing his song. If he goes to Kiburi’s float, it’s probably to try and get the siblings to reunite and make her proud of him

“Hey guys, this little gecko is now a crocodile. You can fight me on that! No, seriously, I dare you to challenge me to a mashindano!”

-Her and Kiburi’s dynamic would definitely stay the same lmao. Imagine her reaction when Kiburi finally challenges her

Kiburi: Or…I could call for a mashindano

Crocodiles: *gasp*

Ucheshi: :0

Ucheshi: Nuh uh

Kiburi: ….Tf you mean “nuh uh”?!

Yeah my…my brain is weird djdbbdgrgrv

[megamindsupremacy]

Thoughts on the TimBerKon ship (Tim/Bernard/Kon)? Because some like Tim and Kon, while others like Tim and Bernard, but it's all easier if it's poly :D

And the idea of one normal human with two superhero boyfriends and not knowing it is just hilarious to me. Any ships that you do prefer? Or any you want to be more known?

oooo, timberkon is an interesting ship! I've read a few fics that are the epitome of "Tim has two hands" which is delightful always. That being said, a scenario where Kon and Bernard start dating first and THEN drag Tim into it? top tier love them so much

Also, yeah the potential for looney-tunes-esque shenanigans when there are two heroes and one normal ("normal" in gigantic air quotes) guy in a relationship/living together are unparalleled. Kon and Tim constantly trying to hide their superheroing from Bernard. They're bad at it. Bernard figured out Kon is a super but not Tim and he thinks it's him and Tim as the two regular guys to Kon's superhero. He never even realizes that Tim has a secret identity for him to maybe discover. He tells none of this to the other two because he assumes all of this is common knowledge and not a gigantic misunderstanding. Can you imagine.

I'm not really big on shipping culture, honestly! I don't go out of my way to avoid any ships and I don't intentionally seek them out either, really. I won't not read a fic because it has x ship, most of the time, but also if a fic is ship-centric then I'm probably reading something else. It's the acearo in me lol, I have other preferences

[mouseratz]

tagging game! tagged by @yarboyandy

-three ships

uhhhh. Off the top of my head. 1.lisacreature duh. the whole movie. they're not a healthy relationship but like they're fine they just destroy everything around them. i lurv it . also of fucking course I wanted a zombie boyfriend as a teenager. I won't lie to any of you

2. danbert bc gay people in my phone. classic case of toxic yaoi. so toxic I've been thinking about them for years. if only reanimator had like been gay on purpose we could've had it all

3. also based off of "what's in my camera roll". the evil scientists from mst3k are gay also. Dr Forrester and tvs frank.... is this even disputed. I don't care. I've known this since I was a child. "they're gay married and kill each other in looney tunes esque situations daily" feels like part of the character concepts.

-first ship

Inuyasha x Kagome, most likely. it's like one of the first obsessions I can remember where a show had like, a romantic throughline I cared about at all. although, to be fair, I was still mostly into the comedy and supernatural stuff, and this was Very Young.

-last song I listened to

I stumbled upon the tiny desk concert performance and well. I am not immune to popular things. chappell roan is pretty awesome. I love the videos and performances, but the pop music is also really solid, and I find myself enjoying it way more than expected. this songs good but I haven't listened to it a lot yet....my first time actually

-currently reading

Perry Mason and the Glamorous Ghost. I'm only like a chapter in. idk it was an impulse buy on my birthday because the cover was awesome. also pictured: my copy of Frankenstein. I read that in October. loved it

-currently watching

uhmmmm. still rewatching always sunny in Philadelphia. forever. watched a couple episodes of space ghost coast to coast earlier. I still want to keep watching twin peaks the return but I haven't because. idk. its hard to be me....

-relationship status

very incredibly single. it is very hard to date when u can't drive where I live. I mean it's hard in any circumstance but whatever shots I had are dust. would love to date sometime in my life possibly. I have been feeling that way for um. like four years now. so. we will see how that goes.

-current obsessions

Lisa Frankenstein, obvs.....my hobbies and such though? kind of in a slump. I've been like.....learning how to apply makeup for once for fun. I'm still very bad at it but idgaf it is what it is what's always made me uncomfortable about it was that it never "looked right" and I didn't want to be judged. instead of just treating it like a for fun thing. ie I want Colors On My Face I don't even cover up my acne atp. oh and the gender thing. like if I didn't do the makeup right I was being bad at being a girl. and now I do not have to worry about that at all.

-currently craving

like, food? um. I hope the brownies I made tonight taste good in the morning. I let them cool overnight so idk how they taste yet.

-favorite color

green, but I'm a big fan of what pink and black (I KNOW it's not a 'real color' IDC) and some shades of blue and yellow and orange have going on. I just like colors lmao

-tagging

hiiii I won't mind if you don't do it this is just a little shout-out okay :) @mahkari @jokeryuri @homokommari @mushroom-in-space

also anypony else who wants to do it can.....I won't be mad

[ask-prime-starscream]

Beast Wars/Machines Review

I finished Beast Wars a few weeks ago and then binged Beast Machines because I NEEDED to spend more time with the characters I began to love so much!

This is the first Transformers show where I liked the “Autobots” more than the “Decepticons”. Yes, I legit liked the good guys more. I still can’t believe it either.

Maximals:

Optimus Primal is a good leader who doesn’t lash out when one of his bots gets a little cheeky. He also has no problem with admitting when he had been wrong about a thing.

Rhinox is part Ratchet and part Ironhide. The second in command who keeps the people straight when the leader cannot. I guess they made him evil in Beast Machines because they didn’t know what to do with him anymore. 

Dinobot is the honor-obsessed, Armada Starscream-esque character who leaves the bad guys right in the beginning and joins the good guys. Forever. That makes him already better than Armada Starscream who left the Decepticons because Megatron is an ass, but then returns because what the fuck.

Cheetor is the Beast Wars Bumble Bee. Fun-loving youngster. He later gets a leading position when Optimus gets too stuck up in his spirituality. Similar to Prime -> RiD2015.

Rattrap is a rat, but a loyal and funny rat. I hated him so much in IDW, it was hard to peel that hatred off to finally enjoy this character.

Tigatron and Airazor have been a boring couple in IDW and now I know that they also started out as a boring couple. They walk on a field of flowers and suddenly hold hands and decide they love each other. Okay. I’m all in for love in a Transformers show, but that was... *yawn* I guess the creators thought so too because they both get beamed into space and out of their bodies right after.

Silverbolt. The heck is that abomination, I thought. Half wolf, half duck, half robot? Then he became my second favorite character.

Depth Charge is the Ultra Magnus of the show. Comes in late, is an unlikeable ass and nobody knows why he was even added. Unlike in Prime they have at least the balls to kill him off in the end.

Tigerhawk is the rebis of Tigatron and Airazor and yes, I watched Castlevania and that image of the man-woman-fusion scarred me for life. Thankfully this thing doesn’t live long.

Predacons:

Now for the Predacons. This is the silliest Megatron I have ever seen. He is also irredeemable evil, but funny in a way.

Scorponok. Pathologically loyal. Killed off unceremoniously.

Terrorsaur is the discount Starscream. He is such a cheap knock-off and probably the weakest bot overall. A butt-monkey. Killed off unceremoniously and I wasn’t sad at all.

Tarantulas is fucking evil, I started hating him so much for the things he did especially to Blackarachnia.

Waspinator is a joke. Seeing him getting ripped to shreds Looney Tunes style is funny though. In this series the bots survive like almost anything.

Blackarachnia is my favorite character. I needed a little time to warm up to her, but damn, she is amazing! She later joins the good guys and doesn’t lose her snarky, awesome personality in the process. What more could you want?

Inferno calls Megatron “his queen”. You have to love him for that.

Quickstrike is another Fuzor abomination like Silverbolt. He also flirts with Blackarachnia like Silverbolt. But he doesn’t win Blackarachnia’s dark, poisonous heart like Silverbolt. ;)

Rampage was created to mimic Starscream’s immortal mutated spark. Found that backstory quite interesting. 

Beast Machines add-ons:

Nightscream is an angsty teen who does his own thing when he feels the need to.

Botanica is the first and last plant bot we ever see. First she doesn’t want to join the fights even though she is powerful, but thankfully she later decides against that bullshit.

Jetstorm, Thrust and Tankor. The reveal who they really are is quite funny. It also shows that Megatron is cool with overriding people’s personalities in order to rule over them.

Obsidian and Strika. Oh so that’s where they come from. They can also stay there. Never liked them. Not personality-wise. And especially not design-wise.

Now then. Did I enjoy watching this? Oh hell yes. I got addicted. I was never bored. The main characters felt like family. The only thing I missed was a Starscream to pathologically latch on to. But at least he has one episode. ;) It was hard to tolerate the nightmare-inducing graphics and I will always prefer vehicles over animals, but getting over that, one is definitely in for a treat concerning TF shows.

And now to the one thing that kept me watching the most:

Silverbolt x Blackarachnia is my favorite CANON Transformers couple of ALL TIME!

Their dialogue is so frickin’ funny, I couldn’t take it. Their love is genuine and builds up slowly. They still have their own agendas without losing parts of their personality in order to fit better. IT WAS JUST SO FUNNY!

Silverbolt is a superhero personality character and also self-aware about that. First he just annoys Blackarachnia beyond belief with his chivalrous nonsense, but later she finds enjoyment in getting his attention. For example, she lets him save her even though she didn’t need his help. That’s the point when you get she starts having feelings for him, too, as she has no qualms flirting with someone in order to get them to do what she wants (like Quickstrike). And after some ups and downs (”You know, I like them big and stupid, but you are really pushing it!”), they finally find together and she joins the Maximals. And then we get into Beast Machines and Blackarachnia is like the force keeping them together as Silverbolt was turned into a Vehicon (Oh, so that’s where they came from!), but even after creating a new body for him, he turned into a RiD2015/Samura-Drift-kinda character and only at the end of the series he returned to his wonderful corny self. That was definitely a bummer.

But for fuck’s sake!! Why can’t we have more like that? D: I was squeaking on my chair, shipping them so hard...!

[little-murmaider]

Skwisgaar or Magnus?

Let’s do Magnus!

First impression: *Arrested Development Voice* Him?

Impression now: My feelings on Canon Magnus are pretty much the same but the super cool and fascinating and well-rounded and fully realized person the fandom created is great! I’ve grown from “indifference” to “actually maybe I like this character” and that’s all thanks to the diligent work of Magnus F**kers. 

Favorite moment: Okay I have a confessions to makes: I don’t love Dethcamp. I like it fine, and there are parts of it I really really love! It’s just not in my re-watch rotation. So I’d have to say my favorite moment is Magnus and the Assassin because it whips ass. 

Idea for a story: The Magnus Lives AU I will never actually write. There’s also the still-untitled Charles/Magnus story, here are all those excerpts because everything else I have for it is incomprehensible. 

Unpopular opinion: It’s not an off-base characterization by any stretch, but I don’t really see him as this great tragic figure deserving of pathos and sympathy. I’ve enjoyed and loved a lot of works that treat him as such, and I don’t mean any disrespect to anyone! I just like him best when he’s this exaggerated Looney Tunes-esque villain, cackling as he tries to drop a piano on Dethklok’s head.  

Favorite relationship: I tell ya wHut Magnus/Charles is really rising in the ranks of my Magnus Ships. But you never forget your first. (By which I mean, MagNate will always be my One True On Fire Garbage Can.)

Favorite headcanon: He is the only member of Pre Klok Dethklok that has an actual, consistent, steady job. (Nathan occasionally moonlights as a bouncer, Murderface does odd jobs when he needs cash, Pickles banks on his SnB royalties, and Skwisgaar claims working a real job will put his visa status in jeopardy. He’s totally bluffing but no one knows enough about the immigration process to call him on it.) He’s a barback and bartender at a hotel bar, and he works as waitstaff for private parties through the hotel’s catering company.

Send Me a Character and I’ll Tell You...

[spacenoise]

Essential Steven Universe Episodes

Hello everyone! 

Looking to watch Steven Universe, but not drag yourself through all the episodes? Never fear! I’ve made a list of what I believe to be the most essential episodes of Steven Universe with unnecessary ones labelled as such (and my reasons why). Now here’s some things to keep in mind before looking at the list:

When I say “essential” I mean ones that introduce important elements to the story. New important characters, new powers, episodes that develop the character and plot-relevant episodes fit this category. 

Episodes that develop certain characters will be labeled as “unnecessary” if they don’t contribute enough to the plot or their growth.

There may be some personal bias since I found one or two filler episodes to be enjoyable despite their uselessness to the overall plot but I’ll label them as well so you know.

 Avoid reading ahead. The labels for unnecessary ones may contain SPOILERS so if you care about that kind of stuff: you’ve been warned.

On to the list!

Season 1

1. Gem Glow

2. Laser Light Cannon

3. Cheeseburger Backpack: Steven’s first mission

a. Together Breakfast: shows off gem rooms and a monster but that’s really it.

b. Frybo: introduces PeeDee but he doesn’t ever really do anything so...?

4. Cat Fingers

5. Bubble Buddies

6. Serious Steven

a. Tiger Millionaire: while there is some character development, there isn’t really enough to make it worth watching since most of the episode is focused on wrestling.

7. Steven’s Lion

8. Arcade Mania

9. Giant Woman

10. So Many Birthdays: a peek at how dark this show can get

11. Lars and the Cool Kids

a. Onion Trade: mainly about Onion; if you like his character, feel free to watch but if not I’d avoid it since it ultimately doesn’t mean much.

12. Steven the Sword Fighter

13. Lion 2: The Movie

a. Beach Party: Gems piss off the family that runs the town’s pizza shop and try to make it up to them by inviting them to hang out. Shenanigan ensue, but has no lasting impact on the story.

14. Rose’s Room

15. Coach Steven

a. Joking Victim: develops Sadie and Lars’ relationship; skip if you don’t really care about either

16. Steven and the Stevens

17. Monster Buddies

18. An Indirect Kiss

19. Mirror Gem & Ocean Gem 

a. House Guest: shows why Steven has trouble with his powers, but nothing too important happens other than that; watch if you wanna see more Pearl & Greg interactions

20. Space Race: shows Pearl’s fondness of space; develops her character and background but not necessary; skip if you want

a. Secret Team: if you don’t like episodes about characters making temporary truces I’d avoid this one; not enough character development to make it worthwhile.

b. Island Adventure: another Sadie and Lars episode; Lars opens about his feelings but not much else happens.

21. Keep Beach City Weird: relevant for SU: Future reasons, but if you don’t like Ronaldo skip

22. Fusion Cuisine

a. Garnet’s Universe: contributes nothing, but is a kinda cute episode.

b. Watermelon Steven: introduces a character(s) that is only used a total of three (maybe four?) times; also introduces a power that is rarely ever used when it matters.

23. Lion 3: Straight to Video

24. Alone Together

25. Warp Tour

a. The Test: some good character discussions, but not important overall.

26. Future Vision

27. On the Run

a. Horror Club: if you don’t care for Ronaldo, Sadie or Lars: skip. Even if you care about Lars, skip this one since you kinda get the gist of his character at this point.

b. Winter Forecast: a few nice moments, but ultimately a big “what-if” episode

28. Maximum Capacity

29. Marble Madness

30. Rose’s Scabbard

a. Open Book: a Steven and Connie episode; fun if you like them, but skippable

b. Shirt Club: focuses on one of the Cool Kids but ultimately means nothing

c. Say Uncle: Uncle Grandpa Crossover; some funny moments from the Gems but if you don’t like UG avoid this one.

31. Story for Steven

32. The Message

a. Political Power: addresses certain concerns the Gems have, but nothing important crosses over into the next episode; most about Mayor Dewey anyway

33. The Return

34. Jailbreak

-------------------

Season 2

1. Full Disclosure

a. Joy Ride: Steven messes around with the Cool Kids; there’s a bit here briefly referenced in SU: Future I think, but other than nothing really happens; skip it if you want

b. Love Letters: properly introduces Jamie and shows his character, but he never does anything for the plot. All you need to know if him and Steven are friends.

c. Reformed: introduces Amethyst's new form and shows more of her insecurities but that’s all this episode is really good for.

2. Sworn to the Sword

a. Rising Tides, Crashing Skies: a Ronaldo episode; need I say more?

3. Keeping It Together

4. We Need To Talk

5. Chille Tid

6. Cry for Help

7. Keystone Motel

a. Onion Friend: another Onion episode; addresses how Amethyst feels regarding the current situation, but other than that nothing worthwhile.

b. Historical Friction: Jamie puts on a play and some gem stuff is involved; no action, but tells us about the Gems’ history

8. Friend Ship

a. Nightmare Hospital: mostly about Connie and her mom; some cool scary bits, but skippable.

b. Sadie’s Song: entirely about Sadie and how her mom makes her feel; skip if you don’t care much for Sadie.

9. Catch and Release

10. When It Rains

11. Back to the Barn

a. Too Far: develops Peridot and Amethyst’s relationship, and develops Peridot’s character, but not enough to make this episode necessary

12. The Answer

a. Steven’s Birthday: fun episode, but ultimately contributes nothing

13. It Could’ve Been Great

14. Message Received

a. Log Date 7 15 2: shows how Peridot got to where she is (as a character) and fills in some holes between Catch and Release and Message Received; fun and worth watching but skippable regardless

-------------------

Season 3

1. Super Watermelon Island

2. Gem Drill

3. Same Old World

4. Barn Mates

5. Hit the Diamond

a. Steven Floats: introduces new power but not much else

b. Drop Beat Dad: Explains where Greg gets his money, and I guess if you’re a Sour Cream fan watch this one? Skip if you’re not. 

6. Mr. Greg

7. Too Short To Ride

a. The New Lars: focuses on Lars mostly, but Sadie also shows up at one point; skip if you don’t care about them.

b. Beach City Drift: watch if you like Stevonnie; skip if you don’t really care.

c. Restaurant Wars: pointless fight between the pizza shop family and the fry stand family. I guess if you like food watch this one, but you can skip this one.

d. Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service: focuses on certain member’s of the pizza family. Skippable, but watch if you like pizza I guess.

8. Monster Reunion

9. Alone at Sea

a. Greg the Babysitter: a “stories of the past” episode where Rose shows up; nothing important really happens though

b. Gem Hunt: a certain character makes a return, but not until the end of the episode; skippable

10. Crack the Whip

a. Steven vs. Amethyst: develops their relationship but skippable overall

11. Bismuth

12. Beta 

13. Earthlings

14. Back to the Moon

15. Bubbled

-------------------

Season 4

a. Kindergarten Kid: Looney Tunes-esque episode; fun but skippable

b. Know Your Fusion: certain fusions return but still skippable

c. Buddy’s Book: shows off more of the Gems’ history and has Rose in it; still skippable despite all this since none of it is super important.

2. Mindful Education

a. Future Boy Zoltron: skippable since it focuses on Mr. Smiley and a former colleague; watch if you want to see some fun interactions.

b. Last One Out of Beach City: fun episode and shows some of Pearl’s development, but still skippable.

c. Onion Gang: it’s an Onion episode so: skippable.

d. Gem Harvest: Thanksgiving episode; reveals Steven’s real last name but nothing else important.

3. Three Gems and a Baby

4. Steven’s Dream

5. Adventures in Light Distortion

6. Gem Heist

7. The Zoo

8. That Will Be All

a. The New Crystal Gems: shows us what Connie, Lapis and Peridot did while Steven was in space. Nothing really happens so just skip this one.

9. Storm in the Room

a. Rocknaldo: features Ronaldo once again and is arguably one of the worst episodes. Thankfully, it’s skippable.

b. Tiger Philanthropist: callback to an older episode; doesn’t contribute anything to the current plot

10. Room for Ruby

a. Lion 4: Alternate Ending: goes no where and contributes nothing; reveals possible name for Steven if he was a girl though so...cool I guess? Skip it.

11. Doug Out

a. The Good Lars: develops Lars’ character a little, but not much else

12. Are You My Dad

13. I Am My Mom

-------------------

Season 5

a. Stuck Together: Steven and Lars’ relationship develops further along with Lars’ character; some dramatic moments make it an overall a good episode, but you can skip it if you want.

1. The Trial

2. Off Colors

3. Lars’ Head

a. Dewey Wins: Steven realizes why Connie’s upset with him; saved you from watching Mayor Dewey for almost eleven minutes.

b. Gemcation: another good episode, but skippable regardless.

4. Raising the Barn

a. Back to the Kindergarten: shows how Peridot feels after a certain event, but nothing else really happens.

b. Sadie Killer: Sadie starts a band and that’s it. Skip if you don’t care much for Sadie.

c. Kevin Party: watch for character drama and one resolution, but skip if you can’t stand Kevin.

5. Lars of the Stars

6. Jungle Moon

7. Your Mother and Mine

a. The Big Show: a Sadie’s band episode; skippable

b. Pool Hopping: shows off Garnet’s fears and insecurities but is still skippable

c. Letters to Lars: basically amounts to Dewey finding his place in town after losing his job; nothing else so just skip this one.

8. Can’t Go Back

9. A Single Pale Rose

10. Now We’re Only Falling Apart

a. What’s Your Problem: develops Steven and Amethyst’s relationship further; skip if you want, but it’s a good episode to watch.

11. The Question

12. Made of Honor

13. Reunited

14. Legs From Here To Homeworld

15. Together Alone

a. Escapism: shows how Steven contacts the B-team but overall just feels kind of out of place? Skip if you want.

16. Change Your Mind (four parts; almost an hour long btw)

  -------------------

Watch Steven Universe: The Movie if you plan on watching Steven Universe: Future

 -------------------

Steven Universe: Future

1. Little Homeschool

a. Guidance: skippable since nothing in this episode is mentioned ever again. Smoky Quartz is in it though so watch if you like her.

2. Rose Buds

3. Volleyball

a. Bluebird: introduces Greg’s new look and a new fusion that’s never brought up again.

b. A Very Special Episode: fun episode but contributes nothing to the overall story.

4. Snow Day

a.  Why So Blue: shows other Lapis Lazulis and shows us how far Lapis has really come; watch if you’re a Lapis fan, but skip if you want.

b. Little Graduation: skip if you never really cared too much about any of the human characters since this is mostly about them.

c. Prickly Pair: downer of an episode; no one ever mentions anything that’s said in this episode, but check it out if you wanna see Steven more of Steven’s plant powers!

6. In Dreams

7. Bismuth Casual

8. Together Forever

9. Growing Pains

a. Mr. Universe: Greg’s history is revealed but doesn’t contribute much so skip if you don’t really care about that too much.

10. Fragments

11. Homeworld Bound

12. Everything’s Fine

13. I Am My Monster

14. The Future

And that’s it! I guess let me know if this list was helpful or not, but other than that: I hope you enjoy Steven Universe!

[shirtlesssammy]

6x17: My Heart Will Go On

Then:

You never really die on Supernatural

Now:

Chester, Pennsylvania

In a Rube Goldberg-esque bit of murder mastery, a man fumbles his way around his garage, nearly dying several times, only to finally get taken out by his falling garage door. What a ride. 

Meanwhile, in Bobby’s neater than normal home, Sam and Dean watch him open another bottle of booze. They silently egg each other on to talk and finally decide on Rock-Paper-Scissors. Oop, it looks like you’re going to have to do the talking, Dean. 

Only, wait, Dean won! They think he should take some time and sleep, and process losing Rufus. Bobby’s DOING FINE. He just needs some Irish coffee. Sam suggests taking him on a hunt. Seems like different family members are dying in Chester, Pennsylvania. Bobby kicks them out of the house, so they decide to head out alone. 

They get in their trusty Mustang, and hit the road. 

...

Bobby keeps drinking until Ellen (!) shows up. 

…

She consoles him about Rufus and tells him to get ready for dinner. 

And she’s his wife. 

…

At the garage of horror, Sam finds a thread of gold. 

They split up. Dean interviews next of kin. He first meets with a Saul Goodman wannabe Shawn Russo. The guy isn’t too upset by his family members dying --he wasn’t too close with them. He also doesn’t have a lot of time for Dean’s genealogy questions. 

Dean tries sussing out any past family curse --poorly.  Shawn wants Dean to go, so Dean just comes out and tells him, “Your life is in danger.” Shawn thinks Dean’s threatening him. 

He connects with Sam who can’t find a single thing wrong with the family. 

At a travel agency, we watch Anne Witting chat on the phone, and time suddenly stops. Another woman, looking like Sam’s kind of librarian, takes Anne’s keys from her purse and throws them on the floor next to the copier. She leaves and time starts again. 

The woman gets off the phone and notices her keys are on the floor. Grabbing for them knocks a vase of flowers onto the copiers, which creates an electrical nightmare, which causes her to start slapping at it and finally reaching behind it to turn it off, which then causes her scarf to get stuck in the autofeeder, which the copier then tries to make a copy of, which strangles her. (Note to self: BE NICER TO THE COPY MACHINE.) 

The blonde woman comes back and marks a name off in a book, and drops a gold thread. 

The brothers check out the travel agency that night. It turns out that Anne isn’t part of the Russo family --so they’re not dealing with a family curse. Dean wonders what then. He then finds another gold thread. 

He calls Ellen, who reports there’s been about 75 deaths associated with this across the nation. The only thing Ellen has that connects the people is that their ancestors all immigrated to the US in the same year, on the same boat: The Titanic. Neither Dean nor Ellen had ever heard of it. 

…

Sam either. (And that’s when I call bull --unless this Sam isn’t a history nerd-- because the Titanic was a BIG deal before it became a BIGGER deal. It was the largest ship of its time. But as I typed this out, I feel like I should eat my words because there was another sister boat built with the Titanic, and I can’t for the life of me remember its name, so, yeah, chances are good it would have been lost to history for most people.) 

During their research, Sam notes that the ship almost hit an iceberg, but the First Mate, I.P. Freely saw it in time. 

Balthazar!

They summon Balthazar for answers about the boat. “It was meant to sink, and I saved it.” He hated the movie. (Boris is still one of the few and proud that’s never seen it --I cheered SO hard for Balthazar here.) He hated the Celine Dion song. Sam doesn’t even know who that is (HIS FAVORITE SINGER!) Sam points out that he thought that history can’t be changed. Balthazar points out that there’s no more rules. Anyway, only minor details have been changed --like no Impala. 

More importantly, Ellen and Jo are alive. They are supposed to be dead.

Dean and Sam focus on the here and now and point out that something is killing the descendants of the Titanic travelers. They need to find out who. Balthazar drops a truth bomb out of nowhere --pointing out that Cas is in love with Dean. Sigh. Also, he doesn’t care, and flaps away. 

They talk with Bobby on the phone and he thinks they’re dealing with Fate. How do they stop fate? Bobby suggests that they get Balthazar to re-sink the boat, but Dean nixes that idea instantly. Bobby wants to know what set him off --Dean tells him that if the boat sinks, Ellen and Jo die. Yeah, no way is that boat sinking.

The boys lurk in their iconic, uh, Mustang to follow Russo. 

They follow Russo in an attempt to keep him safe from Fate’s machinations. They manage to save him from one deadly accident, only for the guy to die under the wheels of a bus seconds later. Sam notices a woman watching over the accident. She looked kind of like a librarian. “Your kind of librarian or my kind of librarian?” Dean asks. Oh, Dean, why does it have to be a binary choice? Eyebrow waggle. Dean decides to head over and confront Fate in a shadowy building. 

Fate, meanwhile, is up to nefarious deeds. She turns burner knobs, releasing gas into the building as time stops around the Winchesters. When time starts up again, Dean’s flashlight flickers out in the dark. Sam suggests using a lighter and....

Just as the room starts to ignite, the Winchesters get yanked out of there! Cas saved them! He’s pulled them to Belarus. I will never not be able to watch this scene without thinking of the gag reel and Misha stag leaping around the woods. 

“[Fate] harbors a certain degree of rage towards you,” Castiel explains. Since the Winchesters foiled their apocalyptic fate, they’ve made it into Fate’s bad books. Cas suggests the best solution is for the Winchesters to kill fate. And they can use themselves as bait!

For CAAAAAAAS! Science:

Ellen tries to talk through the case with Bobby after Jo reports more and more dead on the West coast. Ellen suggests that the best solution would be to re-sink the Titanic, a suggestion towards which Bobby reacts...poorly. Bobby’s horrified at her casual suggestion. Ellen senses something is off with Bobby. Over drinks, Bobby spills everything to Ellen. He tells her that he needs her. 

After that solemn, emotional scene, we cut to Dean and Sam experiencing wacky near-misses. A skateboarder almost takes them out. Then a jumping BMX rider. Now a pair of aggressive dogs on leashes. (Extreme close of up Dean for extra sad jokes.)

They walk past a pair of jugglers tossing HATCHETS and KNIVES who proceed to LIGHT THEM ON FIRE - and I do love it when this show gets ridiculous. After several near-misses, a falling air conditioner finally plummets towards them. This looks like the end for our heroes!

For Looney Tunes Quality Science:

Time freezes the Winchesters under the air conditioner, and Castiel approaches. He greets Atropos, the Fate who’s after the Winchesters. She complains about the fallout of the recently averted apocalypse. 

Cas tries to argue for freedom. It’s a bold new world! But Atropos isn’t buying what he’s selling. The last straw for her was the unsinking of the Titanic. Cas tries to shift the blame to Balthazar, but Atropos calls him on that too. That wasn’t Balthazar following a whim. Cas needed more souls for his war machine, and sent Balthazar back to unsink the ship. She’ll make Cas a bargain: if the boat stays unsunk, then she’ll kill his “two favorite pets.” She may not be strong enough to escape Cas’s retribution, but her sisters will take the Winchesters down after she dies. Cas contemplates Sam and Dean.

Balthazar shows up, ready to kill Atropos, when Cas stops him. Cas is ready to take the deal. Balthazar gets Cas’s new order: it’s time to save Sam and Dean! I mean, it’s time to sink the Titanic. 

Sam and Dean wake up to Sam’s favorite singer belting “My heart will go on” on the radio. They talk about their weird, shared dream. Cas flaps in to greet them. He tells them that he had Balthazar re-sink the ship to ensure Sam and Dean’s safety. 

Sam and Dean try to process the balancing equation Cas dealt with, where their lives were more important than 50,000 people (who were never born, Cas hastily points out). Dean asks about Ellen and Jo, and the answer is NOT GOOD. What could have been! 

Dean asks if that whole alternate timeline was erased when the boat sank again. “More or less,” Cas says. EYEBALLS EMOJI. Cas wants the Winchesters to remember the alternate timeline. “You can make your own destiny. You don’t have to be ruled by fate. I still believe that’s something worth fighting for,” Cas tells them. Can I get a HELL YEAH? 

While it seems for a short while like Cas is edging towards telling them the truth of his war, he ultimately plays off the Titanic as only stemming from Balthazar’s hatred of the movie. “Titanic didn’t suck THAT bad,” Dean says. There’s my soft boy. Cas flaps out, and the Winchesters head inside to check on Bobby. His house is back to cluttered, gloomy chaos. Bobby’s asleep on the couch. Sam and Dean vow never to tell Bobby what he could have had.

It is Your Quotedany:

Accidents don't just happen accidentally

"What's an Impala?" Trust me, it's not important

You have me confused with the other angel. You know, the one in the dirty trenchcoat who's in love with you

Can’t avoid fate

Who do we gotta kill to get killed around here?

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[iyamifucker]

Phantom quartz with Iyami?

Ahh thank you!!

Phantom Quartz: What kind of media does your F/O enjoy? Is there a particular title they like? Do you enjoy similar kinds of media, or are your tastes rather different?

Oh, that’s a tough one! I don’t personally know of many stories where he has been shown like, watching something or consuming media in general, other than watching a TV special on how to properly brush an overbite once in -san and some Tom and Jerry-esque cartoons in 80s -kun once.

He does like arcade games, though, so there’s that! He’s an old-school kind of guy. I’m personally... not very skilled in older games myself, heh. They rely too much on hand-eye coordination, and mine’s very poor. But I too like video games in general, so we’d have that in common!

But as for his tastes in TV or movies... Cartoons seem like a safe bet, especially old Looney Tunes-ish ones! The more slapstick the better. We’d get along on this point because I’m studying to be an animator so I pretty much love anything animated. I feel like he’d like zany comedies in general too. And game shows, just so he can see people fall on their butts. But I can also see him having a weakness for old, sappy romance movies and dramas? I feel like they’d be a hidden guilty pleasure kinda thing for him, heh.

Crystal Themed Self-Ship Asks!

[ducktracy]

120. the phantom ship (1936)

release date: february 1st, 1936

series: looney tunes

director: jack king

starring: tommy bond (beans), bernice hansen (ham and ex), billy bletcher (skeleton)

the first cartoon to include the trademark zooming WB shield! ham and ex make their first appearance since i haven’t got a hat. they’d accompany beans in a few cartoons, usually as trouble making nuisances to the chagrin of beans. beans travels to iceland to investigate a haunted ship, but stowaways ham and ex cause trouble for all.

open to ham and ex, crouched over a newspaper that’s sprawled out on the floor. they exchange awed looks, the headline reading “BEANS TO HUNT FOR HAUNTED TREASURE SHIP IN NORTH”, complete with a photo of a smiling beans in pilot’s garb. ham and ex leap to their feet, giggling excitedly and dashing out the door.

they stumble across beans, who’s oiling up his anthropomorphic plane (a scene parallel to bosko lubing up HIS plane in dumb patrol (1931)). beans runs into the shed to fetch something, leaving the perfect opportunity for ham and ex to jump into the smiling plane as stowaways. the disney-esque plane lets them in, lowering itself and opening the hatch. beans returns just in time, unaware that he has two guests going along in his journey. he squirts more oil into the plane’s mouth, gives the propeller a good spin, and hops right in to take off.

on the plane’s dashboard is a ticker that marks beans’ various destinations. amusingly out of place animation was beans does the hopak while flying over russia, icicles forming on his nose and thermometer bursting after flying over iceland… he whips out a pair of binoculars and spots a broken, worn down ship in the frosty climate. beans gives an excited “hooray!” and spirals safety into a landing, icicles substituting the role of smoke. 

he skids to a stop right in front of the ship. a bat is perched on the wall of the ship, its wings labelled “THE PHANTOM”. beans observes in excitement as the bat flies away. suddenly, ham and ex burst out of the hatch, exclaiming “surprise! surprise!” surely enough, beans is startled after his wits, the famous jack king “hat take” as his hat flies up in shock. he scratches his head and merely shrugs it off.

ham and ex eagerly take beans by the hands, pulling him along. conveniently, a staircase plops down right where the trio was standing. beans cautiously approaches the staircase and motions for the eager pups to follow. just as they begin to ascend, the stairs slide down beneath them, like going up the down escalator. a spare board attached to the ship takes a life of its own as a giant hand and smacks them all to the top of the ship.

the sails on the ship are worn and ragged. one of the torn sails morphes into (another) giant hand, this time tugging at beans’ tail and attempting to snatch him up. it succeeds, and it carelessly tosses beans to another anthropomorphic sail, who then slams him to the ground. the world’s cruelest game of monkey in the middle. beans bounces off a pile of rope, prompting an anthropomorphic anchor to deck him good. beans flies into the belly of the ship, landing on the ground and shadow boxing in self defense, muttering “i’ll get that so and so, he can’t do that to me!” in the midst of his groveling, a lantern swings and knocks beans over once more.

elsewhere, ham and ex are calling “uncle beans! uncle beans!” at the top of the ship with no luck. a pirate skeleton (or skeleton pirate? :thinking emoji:) pops out of a hanging safety boat and grunts “pipe down!” ham and ex, terrified, take cover under a tarp, trembling (complete with an out of place, frankly annoying ringing bell sound effect). a life preserver falls on top of them. lovely, stretchy animation (that reminds me of a very watered down version of this from a gruesome twosome) as ham and ex attempt to run away from each other, yet inevitably bouncing back and collapsing.

instead, they opt to commute by one carrying the other on his shoulders. predictably, they form the appearance of a ghost. i wonder where this is going. they bump into an open door occupied by a skeleton. the skeleton freaks out, clinging to a flagpole for safety. the flagpole breaks, and, with no other option for escape, the skeleton jumps overboard. more animation strikingly parallel to a gruesome twosome as ham and ex topple off each other, running into a pole. both “sides” of their tarp covered lump stretch out on opposite ends, and they’re propelled backwards, conveniently tying around the pirate skeleton from before and unwinding. they’re tossed against the door of the anthropomorphic ship (jack king’s disney influence strong as ever), the door used as a tongue as the ship swallows the pup into its cavernous belly.

like an out of control snowball, the twins barrel down the stairs… and right into beans. the tarp unfolds with ham and ex on the outside and beans beneath the tarp. unaware that their precious uncle beans is smothered beneath the tarp, ham and ex grab two pieces of wood and bash the moving lump’s head in. finally beans yells “OUCH!” (he sounds a lot like jackie morrow’s interpretation of buddy instead of tommy bond. i wonder if they switched for this cartoon? some of the voice credits are so unreliable, but i’m sure my judgement isn’t the best either. i’ll still keep the credit as bond for simplicity/continuity’s sake, but it certainly does sound suspiciously like morrow.), and ham and ex spot an injured beans beneath the tarp.

they both scoop him up, holding him by the hands. beans registers the pain (figurative and literal) and weasels his way out of their grip, exclaiming “bah!” in frustration. he opens a door, hoping for an exit, and finds something much more desirable: a treasure chest overflowing with gold. he creeps over cautiously, then rifling through the goods like he can’t believe it. ham and ex also imitate his cautious saunter, playing with their own coins. a nice little segment of brief personality as they bet each other on flipping coins. 

suddenly, beans spots two people sitting in front of a woodstove, frozen. not creepy at all. beans pulls out a chair beneath one of the frozen victims, and then the other, and feeds both into the stove. he strikes a match to get a roaring fire going, and returns to his treasure while they thaw. beans loads sacks of gold into his plane, tossing them right out the window. 

finally, both of the frozen wonders thaw out and regain consciousness. a particularly burly pirate (that you know is voiced by billy bletcher, even without hearing him. literally another peg leg pete character, complete with said peg leg) discovers beans tossing heaps of gold into his plane and threatens him. beans, ham, and ex are all terrified, ham and ex seeking refuge in a barrel while beans runs away from the pissed off pirate.

eventually, the pirate’s peg leg gets caught in an exposed hole in the board. ham and ex observe the stuck pirate, but quickly duck as the pirate’s assistant spots the curious pups. jack king uses a lot of closeups in his work, and they’re particularly rife in this cartoon. i applaud him for doing something different and slightly ambitious, but they break up the flow of the cartoon rather than enhance it. now, the assistant chases after ham and ex, running straight into a pole and becoming disoriented.

back to the pirate, who’s exerting all of his effort to loosen his peg from the board. he tears the board out from the floor, still stuck. he pulls so hard that he’s propelled into the air, thrown to the deck of the ship where beans is pacing around. bans hides in a cannon, but the pirate pulls him out regardless. he punches beans into a tube… and beans pops out from a parallel tube, ramming right into the pirate. 

ham and ex are shimmying along on a rope close to the crow’s nest (i guess the chase is now just… on top of the ship now? with no prior indication? suspension of disbelief, i know), the pirate’s assistant preparing cutting the rope. ham and ex swing right into the parked plane below, starting the engine. meanwhile, beans is still engaged in his own fight, narrowly dodging an exploding barrel of tnt. he’s rocketed into the air, and ham and ex swoop into the rescue, catching beans in the back seat. beans snaps out of his fugue, coming to terms with ham and ex’s bravery. he gives them kisses of gratitude before saluting the ground before him, and iris out as the plane flies away into the horizon.

not my favorite jack king entry, but not the worst. it was relatively gagless and didn’t feel as exhilarating as it should have with all the action unfolding. it WAS nice to see ham and ex make their first (of a handful) appearance since i haven’t got a hat, though. it just came off as relatively incoherent. it’s basically what you’d imagine it to be as. anthropomorphic objects everywhere. hijinks ensue. it just didn’t have anything to write home about, beans felt drier than usual and ham and ex, a slight improvement, still felt pretty bare, too. i’d say skip it, nothing great but nothing terrible either. but, of course,

link!

[adamwatchesmovies]

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018)

The further this series goes, the more it reminds me of the Ice Age films, except Manny, Diego and Sid’s first adventure was actually good. Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation adds new characters, which means the plot buckles underneath the weight of its extended cast and lazy writing. In terms of visuals, however, it's better than ever.

Sometime after the events of HT 2 (I think there’s been a TV series somewhere), Mavis (voiced by Selena Gomez) organizes a cruise vacation for her family. While Dracula (Adam Sandler) ponders whether it's possible for a monster to "zing" (fall in love) more than once, the ship’s captain, Ericka Van Helsing (Kathryn Hahn) is planning to lead the monsters into a trap.

Along with Andy Samberg, Kevin James, David Spade, Molly Shannon, Steve Buscemi, Mel Brooks and the rest, this picture also brings back the time-killing dance scenes. Call me biased, but I hate them. They’re completely unnecessary, even visually, as this is the most eye-popping and animated entry in the series. The characters’ movements are wildly exaggerated, I’d even call them Looney Tunes-esque, and in the best way. There’s always something to look at, even if it’s a gag in the background. Summer Vacation has bad jokes, but also a good number of laugh-generators too.

The leak in this boat is the story, which is predictable and generic… right until the end where it becomes too terrible to ignore. I can’t tell you why without giving too much away so this is your…

Ericka, and her great-grandfather (Jim Gaffigan) have lured the monsters onto their cruise ship to bring them to Atlantis, the former monster Utopia, which has re-emerged as a casino. Beneath the card games and craps tables, Ericka discovers a melody that will mind-control the Kraken. While Van Helsing pounds the keyboard, playing techno music that sends the Kraken into a murderous rage, Jonathan (Andy Samberg) finds the one song that’ll break the villain’s grip on the tentacled monstrosity… The Macarena. The One-Hit Wonder saves the day, and everyone joins into the iconic moves. I nearly lost it.

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation is a comedy but this excuse only goes so far. Some gags are alright but others are thrown in with little concern for the characters or what was previously established about the world (in #2, vampires don’t appear on film but in this one, they do). With the lame love plot and the by-the-numbers feel, this is a film you’re not going to treasure or look back upon, certainly not once you hit the mind-bender of a climax. While the picture features splendid visuals, particularly in the manic moves of the Drac pack and in a very funny scene set on an airplane flown by gremlins, I can’t recommend it. (3D Theatrical version on the big screen, July 14, 2018)

[ducktracy]

134. shanghaied shipmates (1936)

release date: june 20th, 1936

series: looney tunes

director: jack king

starring: joe dougherty (porky), billy bletcher (captain, hippo)

perhaps inspired by MGM’s mutiny on the bounty in 1935, as well as coupled with jack king’s love of adventure cartoons, shanghaied shipmates (as the title suggests) details the harsh conditions porky and his shipmates endure thanks to a dictatorial captain.

on occasion, i’ve likened jack king to frank tashlin—both directors with a keen eye for cinematography. while tashlin is inarguably the better director, more confident and ambitious than king, king certainly thought in cinematographic terms, as the opening scene suggests. a mist overlay shrouds a seaside town as we hone in on a bar. our favorite pig is doing a dance front and center while a gang of rowdy drunkards cheer him on. a hippo plays tickles the ivory on dueling pianos, and a goat tugs ferociously on a rope connected to some heavy object offscreen—a giant mug of beer. all is well.

inside the bar, that is. the mist overlay compliments the foreboding atmosphere as we get a shot of a docked ship and a lone captain pacing around on deck. suddenly, a tiny little bespectacled dog (one of the supporting members of the i haven’t got a hat gang) hilariously ambles on deck, even climbing over the captain and hopping back down onto the floor, declaring “the crew’s deserted the blinkin’ ship!” the captain is far from pleased, snarling in his assistant’s (christened mr. stew) the only suitable comeback would be to shanghai the crew.

the two pace through the streets of town and break into the bar. there’s a rather tashlin-esque camera angle as the captain analyzes one cowardly drunk in particular. it comes off as random and slightly misplaced, but certainly an interesting angle that’s worthy of a kudos for experimentation. king experimented with his cinematography, but not much else. with a steely glare, the captain pummels his victim and sends him whirling back onto the ship. the process continues, and one by one victims whirl back into their place, the bar growing emptier by the second.

finally, all of the shipmates are back on deck... except one. porky attempts to hide, diving into the inside of a piano, but his tail sticking out of the doors tells on himself immediately. the captain drags him out, grinning condescendingly as porky insists “you can’t do this to me!” of course he can! the captain, relatively unbothered, shoos porky along, giving a bellowing laugh and smacking porky in the butt to get him to go.

highly amusing setup as porky now scrubs the deck of the ship with the most contemptuous expression, glaring absolute daggers at the captain who surveys his every movement. porky’s disdain gets to him, and in an act of rebellion he slips the soap from his grip and slides it all the way to where the captain is marching. and, of course, the captain slips, none too pleased. porky acknowledges what he’s done, naive mischief now replaced with visible anxiety as he braces for punishment. said punishment: a bar of soap shoved down his piggy gullet. once more, porky insists “you can’t do this to me!”, but a hiccup spawning a multitude of bubbles destroys any sort of authority or credibility.

porky goes back to scrubbing when one of his shipmates checks to see what all the fuss is about. a hiccup later and porky attempts to explain himself, hindered by not only a stutter but an entire bar of soap lodged in his throat, eventually gagging “agh-agh-aghh, soap!” thankfully, his buddy is a good sport. the shipmate pulls porky’s tail and slingshots it back, propelling the soap out of his mouth and back onto the deck... where it ends up perfectly in position in front of the lumbering captain, who falls victim to the bar of soap once more. a hippo sticks his head out from inside the ship just to guffaw at the captain—he gets his as the captain placed him in stocks, forcing a cat to lick his feet while the captain bellows in laughter.

after some more mismanagement of the shipmates, we now go to lunch as a dog blares the lunch fanfare through a tuba. a stampede of starving shipmates trample him in seconds, the dog weakly blaring out a few more notes after the fact. a gag very similar in nature to boom boom, another king entry.

certainly nothing can go wrong at lunch, right? an expectant porky observes as the captain stalls with his heaping bowl of fried chicken. porky is so deprived of food that he can hardly contain his unadulterated glee, slapping his face and bouncing up and down and running his hands together. at first i found the scene to be much more disconcerting than anything, but now that i rewatch it, it’s pretty funny in a very unconventional and off-putting manner. funnier than what was intended to be.

paul smith animates the shipmates receiving their hearty meals: nothing but a plain old bone, the captain stripping every single piece of chicken of its contents. the shipmates are not at all happy. a hippo folds his arms in rebellion, a dog resorts to scarfing down his own hat as a means of sustenance, another chopping his bone to pieces and rolling his eyes all around, and even porky tearfully pouring salt on his bone and pitifully licking it off. the scene is unfortunately hindered by the restrained simplicity of smith’s animation, and thusly doesn’t reach its potential in terms of humor. once more, wannabe rebel porky reaches out for a fully packed chicken leg, receiving a slap of the wrist and a bone down the throat in shock instead.

a week crawls on, and the shipmates are more stir crazy than ever. they bang their mugs against the dining hall table, all chanting “we want food! we want food!” in unison. finally fed up, porky crawls onto the table and signals for the rest of the gang to huddle in as he whispers a plan. just then, mr. smee mr. stew pokes his head into the dining hall and is surprisingly smart enough to put two and two together. the animation of him going to alert the captain, scrambling all around the deck and twirling around a pole, is very amusing and funny. “mutiny, captain! mutiny!”

the rowdy shipmates continue to demand for their food as the captain barges into the dining hall, armed with duel pistols. a ballsy porky marches up to the captain and asserts “we demand food!” but, of course, his diminutive size is nothing for the giant captain, who merely blows him over and pins him against the wall with a deep breath. with that, porky orders “c’mon, men! get ‘im!” and thus sparks mutiny on the bounty as all of the men tackle the captain, gunshots firing in defense.

porky himself sets his sights on mr. stew. certainly one of the funniest moments in a king cartoon as porky pins mr. stew down, mr. stew holding up a hand to pause for a second. he signals to his glasses, lifting them up as if to say “would you hit a guy with glasses?” even better, mild-mannered porky gingerly places them aside, and then wastes no time as he decks mr. stew in the face repeatedly. great timing and great unspoken dialogue.

now the fight rages on on the deck of the ship, some shipmates even flying overboard and jumping ship. porky leads his crusade to victory as they all charge towards the captain. in retaliation, the captain whips a menacing cannon right in front of them, threatening to knock them all over like vengeful bowling pins.

however, his plan backfires (no pun intended): he shoots, and the force of the shot is so tremendous that the captain is scooped onto the cannon as it rolls backwards and propels itself into the air. he lands in the comfort of a bunch of crates. crates labeled as explosives. one explosion later, and the shipmates are singing merrily, lazily drifting across the ocean current on a raft, porky in the lead and armed with a whip. pan over to the captain pulling the entire caravan of crusaders, receiving a few hearty whips from porky as we iris out.

i didn’t think much of this cartoon when i first saw it, but i certainly appreciate it more now. not phenomenal by any means, and still hides in the shadow of tex and friz. the gags don’t always hit, some scenes suffering from a lack of confidence and conviction. however, with that said, this was an ambitious cartoon and certainly adventurous. though it didn’t always work out in his favor, king worked ambitiously and experimented with camera angles and surreal ideas, but his execution was where his cartoons were bogged down. good ideas that struggled to be realized. i give him credit for attempting experimenting so much! i’ve certainly gained respect for him (though his cartoons unfortunately don’t really rival the others during this time period.) this was a high energy cartoon that had its moments, such as mr. stew’s run cycles, porky contemptuously scrubbing the ship deck, and the fight scene between porky and mr. stew. i think this is one of king’s more interesting cartoons and would fare well as a single watch, but that’s probably about it.

link!

[ducktracy]

71. buddy the gob (1934)

disclaimer: another one of those cartoons where racist caricatures and stereotypes are predominant. i don’t at all endorse them, they’re wrong and they’re gross, but they can’t be swept under the rug, either. this review is going to contain racist content and imagery. this is purely for educational and informational purposes. if i can do anything at all to make it easier to get through, and if i ever say something offensive or wrong, PLEASE let me know. your enjoyment is my priority. thank you for bearing with me.

release date: january 13th, 1934

series: looney tunes

director: friz freleng

starring: jack carr (buddy), bernice hansen (girl)

sorry in advance for the horrible quality, all of the uploads of this are the same. and also in terms of that disclaimer: this isn’t as nasty as one step ahead of my shadow (thankfully) and the stereotypes aren’t too... raging, but they’re still there, gross, and constitute a disclaimer. anyway, it’s finally 1934, and friz freleng’s first independent director’s credit! buddy the gob (not to be confused with porky the gob) entails our hero budy arriving in china and saving a girl from being sacrificed to a dragon.

open to a rather impressive shot of a fleet of ships (much like the opening of conrad the sailor). fun visuals galore as the ships slide on the waves: nothing new or exciting, but mildly entertaining. freleng’s love of musical timing is evident with various cannons firing and whistles blowing to the beat of the music.

elsewhere, our faithful sailor buddy is dutifully scrubbing away at a pair of pajamas. the pajamas shake the water off like a dog, gratefully accepting a towel handed by buddy to (redundantly) dry itself. buddy, the master of thrilling dialogue, peers out the window and cries “oh, boy! china!”

eagerly does our young gob dash up the stairs and jump off the side of the boat, landing safely in a rowboat. treacherous waves are no problem for the ever optimistic buddy. we fade out and fade in on a bustling chinese village, stocked with stereotypes as always. thankfully, the stereotypes aren’t as nasty, mean spirited, or abundant as they are in one step ahead of my shadow, which this is practically a remake of, but they’re still cringeworthy and uncomfortable. a mother carries her children with a carrying pole, the children dangling by their hair from the pole instead of buckets. meanwhile, a man reads the script on a flyer, getting taller as he reads up and compressing as he reads back down.

buddy encounters the poster and scratches his head, unable to translate it. nevertheless, the magic of cartoons rages on as the script translates into english, reading “GRAND CELEBRATION TODAY, the 150th birthday anniversary of the SACRED DRAGON.” friz tries some fancy work with the camera angle, zooming in on the lower half of the poster that reads “a beautiful girl will be sacrificed to the dragon. COME ONE, COME ALL!” buddy rushes to a growing crowd, trying to get a good look. he climbs a matryoshka of a family like stairs to dive into the crowd.

the crowd isn’t witnessing a brutal execution, but a stereotype filled parade. a man twirls his baton and bounces his beer belly up and down, two men carry a drum, mice jumping on it to create a drum cadence (reused from it’s got me again!), a line of trumpeters, a man playing piano, another man using children and their rice hats as cymbals (😬).

there are some masked dancers who parade the streets, including a caricature of jimmy durante. they loved their durante gags! many more are to come. behind the slightly terrifying durante is the girl about to be sacrificed, crying as she’s carried away in a cage by two men.

loyal buddy hears her cries for help and promises to save her. he runs after her, up a stairway and to a doorway that slams in his face. one of the guards lifts him up with his spear and tosses him to a wall, the spear sticking and buddy falling to the ground as his pants tear.

this is pretty clever: after a few failed attempts at using the spear as a pole vault, he rips a gate off its hinges and fires several of the bars like arrows. one by one, the arrows stack up in the building, proving buddy a safe way to crawl into the building via window and save the girl.

inside, a man is chaining the poor girl to the wall, swallowing the key to the lock. buddy bursts in once the man has left, but not before we get a shot of the fire breathing dragon behind bars. buddy tries all he can to free the girl, trying to rip the chain from the wall, yet fails.

with some quick thinking, he knocks on the door where the man presumably entered. as the man walks out, buddy smashes a barrel over his head, parts of the wood binding him together. our cute boy scout turned violent displays more aggression as he kicks the man in the ass, the key spitting back up onto the ground.

buddy unlocks the lock, and the girl is free. unfortunately, so is the dragon. cookie uses a lantern to jump out of the window and landing in a cart (an appropriate accordion sound effect to accompany the panther unfolding). buddy prepares to join her—he joins her sooner than expected when the dragon literally sets a fire under his butt.

a man pulls the cart (i guess that’s one dehumanizing factor left over from one step ahead of my shadow), the cart flipping opposite ways as they hit rocks. the townsfolk aren’t happy at their celebration being ruined, and an angry mob follows buddy and his girl. the man trips over a rock once more, and the cart is lost in sight. again with the dehumanizing horse gag as the man runs on all fours, carrying buddy and his captive while neighing. ugh. you’re better than this, friz!

buddy and his girl run to a bridge, where buddy snaps the ropes connected to the pegs in the ground. there are some nice visuals as the two run across the bridge, the bridge folding beneath them and plummeting to an endless chasm.

once they make it to the side safe and sound, the two mock the townsfolk, who shake their fists and their spears. one man throws a spear at buddy, and it misses. this gag feels particularly freleng to me, i’m not sure why. i guess it feels rather looney tunes-esque in general. the spear becomes anthropomorphized, and seeing that it missed its target, turns back around and jabs buddy in the butt. iris out.

i have conflicted feelings on this one. for one thing, it wasn’t as bad as i was expecting. the racism is still very much there and shouldn’t be shrugged off, but it isn’t as blatantly nasty as one step ahead of my shadow. another thing, although it was very uncomfortable, it was a relatively good buddy cartoon. more interesting than the rest. the music was great as always, and the sound effects are becoming more and more tolerable. as always, though, the stereotypes and caricatures prevent me from enjoying the cartoon’s full potential. friz certainly has much, much better entries as we’ll get to see and enjoy, but this was also his first independent directorial job. so, if anything, this cartoon carries historical significance with friz’s first directorial credit, but that’s about as much significance as it will get. i wouldn’t really recommend it, but if you do watch it, view at your own discretion (link).

[ducktracy]

132. fish tales (1936)

release date: may 23rd, 1936

series: looney tunes

director: jack king

starring: joe dougherty (porky), billy bletcher (fish)

let the fun of the jack king porky cartoons begin. in truth, he didn’t direct that many at all. maybe 4 tops, but they’re so strange (and this one terrifying) that they left such a mark on me. i said i’d never rewatch them again, and here i am! they’re not AS BAD as i make them out to be, and they’re certainly ambitious, which i give king credit for. yet they’re certainly... offputting, and this one is the most disturbing in my opinion. so, with that warm, happy, promising introduction: porky heads out to the lake for some fishing, but once he falls asleep he has a surreal dream that the fish are catching HIM instead, and it’s up to porky to escape before turning into a pig roast.

any day is a happy day for porky. we open to our porcine pal strolling along, fishing rod in hand, whistling merrily. life is good. he passes by a tiny hole in the ground, where two little worms poke their heads out. they both follow porky to his boat, tied to a stake in the ground on land. porky climbs aboard and notices the worms, sticking his can out so they can climb in. typically worms don’t WANT to be used as bait... then again, this scene feels particularly disney-esque, as all jack king scenes do. one of the worms hops in and signals for the other to join, the other strutting around à la mae west (for reasons unknown) until the first worm yanks him inside. the animation of the worms, and in this cartoon in general, is very fluid and enjoyable.

porky cranks the motor on, and the boat sputters to life. unfortunately, there’s one caveat: the boat is still tied to the stake in the ground. evidently the motor’s got quite the oomph to it—some lovely animation as porky’s boat threatens to drag the entire land behind him. instead, the boat is swung around in a circle, the rope eventually wearing thin and snapping, sending porky catapulting across the lake. seeing as bob mckimson gets an animation credit, i wonder if this is his work: very solid, top notch, mesmerizing animation.

the engine roars on, the ship now completely out of control. a sharp veer towards the left sends porky headed straight for a battle ship. he moans in agony and covers his face, preparing for the impact. but, with a good dose of cartoon logic, the boat takes a sharp turn downward, plummeting into the lake, under the boat, and rocketing back towards the surface again. speed is very strong and tactile, and could very much be likened to tex avery’s knack for speed.

unfortunately, porky’s relief is only temporary. though he narrowly avoids crashing into the ship, his boat is once more hurtling towards the ship. this time, he doesn’t dodge it—he flies straight through, cutting up a dining table (the next porky cartoon, fittingly enough, is shanghaied shipmates, one scene in particular staged very similarly to this one) and zooming out through the other end of the boat. the ship sinks in the distance while porky continues his wild goose chase of a ride.

the animation and speed combine to make a very exhilarating experience. the drawings are three dimensional and almost make for a sense of motion sickness as he zooms across the screen. though this cartoon is a strange one, it’s certainly ambitious and takes many risks, and king deserves credit for that alone.

after whirling around like a torpedo, porky finally realizes that maybe, just maybe, he should reach for the brake. he feels around aimlessly with his foot and finally stomps on the pedal, and the boat spins around in a flurry of activity to a halt at last. dazed from the impact, porky slumps over the boat to recover from his vertigo. in the process, he accidentally swallows a fish and snaps awake, spitting it out. he feels his face and collects himself, making sure he’s truly in the clear.

and, just like that, porky reaches for his fishing rod and finally sets out what he intended to do in the first place: fish. already he nabs a big bite, and prepares to reel in for the long haul. instead, he reels in a mounted fish head (if the cartoon were made in 1999-2000, perhaps the fish head would’ve been a singing big mouth billy bass. just what everyone needs.) clearly displeased, porky frustratedly tosses his catch back in the water. next time, he reels in a REAL catch. to deposit his win, he stretches a bucket out like a long tube and places the fish inside, the bucket returning to its natural state. the gag would have been funnier if it were more apparent, but it’s handled a little too nonchalantly and thusly reads as more incoherent and arbitrary instead of funny.

already, porky grows tired of fishing, literally. fashioning some rope as a makeshift pillow, porky lies down and settled in for a nap. we pan down to the waters below, and spot a quite frankly terrifying fish who’s ready to do some fishing of his own. he opens a picnic basket and rifles through, attempting to find suitable bait: a donut will do. he stuffs the donut inside a rifle and shoots, the donut attached to a string. very similar to the rifle/fishing rod/grappling hook invention featured in gold diggers of ‘49.

in an almost identical manner to the terminally boring old glory 3 years later, porky’s “dream self” rises from his real self and takes the bait. i think this is a big downfall of the cartoon—spoiling the surprise halfway through. if you’re going to go the surreal route, stick with it and don’t spoil the audience that he’s already having a dream. wait until the end for him to wake up for real to imply that it was already a dream instead of explicitly stating “this is a dream, folks!” keep your audience on your toes by tricking them into thinking it’s real. but i digress. the fish reels in his catch, sending porky hurtling down into the water and scooping him up in a net, removing the donut from porky’s snout where it had been clamped down.

the fish carries porky by the feet and waddles along to his humble abode. he signals that he’s home (by making a really strange noise—the only way i can describe it is that it sounds like an abbreviated version of porky’s ostrich from porky’s pet), and two of his children excitedly run out to greet him. yet first, they swim inside merrily to their mother, exclaiming in incomprehensible chatter that their father is home with a big catch. the entire family crowds around porky, one of the fish children poking him and giggling. like a real fish, porky jitters around, and it’s enough to scare the children. they run inside the house and dive inside the laundry hamper, both of their heads covered by a bra (well, not LOTS, but bra humor would sometimes pop up in the 30s cartoons. porky’s party comes to mind when a sheepish porky tosses away a bra.)

here’s where things get delightfully (or not) strange. the fish takes his catch inside and “skins” him, cutting off porky’s sweater. he places the naked, writhing pig inside an aluminum pan, dressing him up so he makes the perfect pig roast. thanks to a hearty helping of pepper being doused on him, porky sneezes and propels himself across the counter, the fish responding “gesundheit!” and positioning him back in the pan. well, he’s polite at least! there’s no voice credit for the fish, but the deep voice leads me to believe that it’s billy bletcher. he garnishes his potential meal and slaps another pan on top to cover him, and places him in the oven.

thus sparks the infamous, disturbing, uncomfortable and quite frankly hilarious scene of porky roasting alive in the oven, coughing and sputtering (and stuttering) “LEMME OUTTA HERE!” porkys manages to buck the lid off of him, pushing the oven door open and making a break for it.

it seems that even nature is against porky as he traverses the unknown waters (i guess he was fishing in the sea instead of the lake?)—an eel threatens to tie him up and restrain him, chasing him around. porky manages to sock the eel in the face, with enough force that the eel ties itself up in a knot. of course, the eel unravels itself and chases porky with more determination than ever.

the chase leads to a sleeping fish (perhaps the same one from before, i had always been under that impression but now rewatching it i don’t think it is), porky and the eel swimming into its mouth. the fish blows the eel out of its mouth like a party streamer, now awake, both the eel and porky swimming back out of its mouth. the fish only looks on in bewilderment. elsewhere, a swordfish threatens to slice porky in two. thankfully, it gets its nose lodged in a spare wooden beam. porky uses this opportunity to grab a mallet and hammer the swordfish’s nose in, bending the point.

while attempting to make his escape, porky comes across a particularly angry octopus, who captures him in its tentacles. some nice, stretchy animation as the octopus spanks porky, porky slingshotted into the distance and flying back into frame thanks to the octopus’ iron grip. now, the octopus attempts to do what the eel couldn’t: strangle him. as porky fights for his life, we fade back into reality, where porky is, for reasons unknown, NAKED and coiled in his rope. he wakes up and collects himself, wrangling himself out of the rope. determined to never see a fish ever again, porky throws all of the fish he caught out of the boat (even though we ever see him catch just one fish.) iris out as a terrified, naked pig zooms into the horizon in his motorboat.

i’m actually glad i rewatched this one, because i’ve definitely re-evaluated my stance on it. i still don’t like it that much, it’s not very funny and more uncomfortable than anything, but at the same time it’s unconventional and has some great bursts of animation. jack king was certainly experimental, but his experiments rarely ever worked out in his favor. i’ve never classified his cartoons as funny, especially in comparison to tex avery, friz freleng, and later frank tashlin (who’ll be coming into the picture soon.) he DOES have at least some sort of eye for cinematography, playing around with camera angles and close ups, which i admire. this cartoon was strange and was meant to be strange, so i appreciate that he took a different route. it’s still overwhelmingly offputting, but it’s not as terrible as i had thought it was before. there’s some great animation, especially the beginning half of porky’s wild boat ride. the cartoon was meant to be disconcerting, and it more than succeeded. i don’t think i’ll be watching this again soon, i still don’t particularly LIKE it but i can appreciate it more. because of that, i’m ambiguous on the recommendation. it’s just so strange that it could constitute a watch, but if you’re looking for something funny and/or charming, this isn’t your best bet. but, with that,

link!