#lynne naylor-reccardi

[figmentjedi]

Concept art from the pitch bible for The Modifyers

[dannyd1997]

I made a fanmade trailer of what the Modifyers would be had it became a Disney Channel original series in 2012.

[disney-afternoon-pictures]

The History of Hailey’s On It

Ever watched the show Hailey’s On It? It’s on Disney Channel, it’s created by Devin Bunje and Nick Stanton, and it’s about a teenage girl with a robot sidekick, and her best friend time traveling and solving all the world’s problems. But before this, there was an original concept. Here we go!

The original concept of a girl and her robot sidekick was Nickelodeon’s recently mothballed The Modifyers created by Lynne Naylor and Chris Reccardi. It was going to be a show about Agent Xero (voiced by Mae Whitman, the voice of Tinker Bell) with her sidekick, Mole, fighting crime against the evil Baron Veign. Nickelodeon saw this and didn’t want it on their network due to female-led shows failing. There was a large fanbase knowing when the series would be greenlit. However, in 2019, Chris Reccardi died of a sudden heart attack while windsurfing, making the outcome more uncertain.

In 2020, Universal’s subsidiary, DreamWorks Animation Television hired Lynne Naylor to team up with Sunil Hall and created The Mighty Ones in 2020, which was critically ravaged and lasted for four seasons, killing Lynne Naylor’s career.

In the wake of Lynne Naylor losing her career, Devin Bunje and Nick Stanton used the concept of a teenage girl and her robot sidekick and created Hailey’s On It, the show began in 2023 and stars Hailey Banks (voiced by Aulili Cravo, the voice for Moana) with her robot sidekick, Beta, her friend, Scott Denoga time traveling, and solving the world problems. The show has 30 episodes, and hopefully, will get 3 more seasons, and hopefully it will be all good, and won’t have seasons 3 and 4 be bad just like Star vs. the Forces of Evil, but is should be great.

[fullcaps-ethan]

your style is so so cute!! If you don’t mind me asking, what are your major style influences? Thanks!

THANK YOUU!!!

this is a bit of a hard question... i take inspirations from a loooot of places

some of my earliest inspirations were peach pit, moyoko anno, natsumi mukai and goushou aoyama ! i started out strongly on the anime side of artstyles, and it's still veeery obvious to this day imo

nowadays, i've been taking inspirations from simplistic, retro artsyles

i recommend shorts posted by this youtube channel ! and checking out mary blair, chris reccardi and lynne naylor !!

i also have to salute yoshihiro togashi, osamu dezaki, the anime series kare kano, cardcaptor sakura and mamoru hosoda that still inspire my storyboards and comics to this dayyyy

when it comes to contemporary internet artists, i'd like to shoutout my friends @patapoulpe-art and antn ! working alongside them has rlly changed my style for the better lol

other internet artists i get inspo from : jeluto , manaohu , poof malyakaet , pengu ... probably a lot more i can't name right now

i swear that if you look at some of these for too long you can see how my art is a frankenstein monster born from all of there

[seeksstaronmewni]

SUPPORT

THIS

DOCUMENTARY

(and @cartoonnetwork in general, regardless of their limited programming and quality these days)

An entire series of behind the scenes with the cast and crew of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy AKA Grim & Evil... this would be really something to air on Cartoon Network or Checkered Past!

As for the Patreon, interviews with Jennifer Hale, Brett Varon, Guy Moon, Glenn E. Oyabe & Jesse Aruda, Marc Perry, Eric Robles, Renee Raudman, Robert Alvarez (among other Burbank animation directors involved), Chris Savino, Brian Sheesley, Rich Childlaw, Chris Mitchell, Vincent Waller, Jeannie Elias, Alex Amalguer, Tara Strong, Shaun Cashman, Genndy Tartakovsky, and Rachel MacFarlane among others I would just love to see! Chris Reccardi passed but perhaps Lynne Naylor would know about what he did on B&M?

Tweet version here.

They left me no choice.

The animation industry is an absolute trash fire right now, and TBH... I don't think it's going to recover. Not in a form I recognize, anyway.

I could go on all day about the self-hating monster that is the Animation Business, but I've said it all before. Right now, none of the major studios are making much of anything, and almost all of what they are making is "library content". I'm currently doing storyboard revisions alongside a number of other former producers and directors, and I'm lucky to have the work. Once all of the mismanagement and the mergers get sorted, though, there should be plenty of room for more mismanagement and mergers. And the A.I. Don't forget the A.I.

It seems that I either give myself over fully to the souring corporate teat in the hopes that I can pretend that I still live in a world where "the grind" matters. Or I take a risk and make one big push to do... something.

First up:

Billy & Mandy vs. The Entertainment Industry:

This is my interview/reality/documentary show on the making of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy from stem to stern. I'll be talking to as many people as I can who worked on the show about all sorts of different parts of the process. We'll definitely get to voice actors, but the first segment is probably going to be about Billy & Mandy's pre-history and the Big Pick Weekend.

The Upward Expedition:

This is my pick for my indie show. I have a bible. I have a decade of ideas. Time to sit down and tell a story. I want to get some screen sharing going at some point. I'll definitely share artwork as well as the trials and tribulations of getting from There to Back Again.

I'd love to get a Discord server going and provide a place where people can talk about the stuff I'm making (and the entertainment industry in general). I still have enough Billy & Mandy swag left that I'm sure I'll factor that stuff in as well.

In the immediate future, the funding goes to securing a space to do the interviews and probably to banking money for voice actors. I'm still deciding on my update schedule, but it should start in earnest next week.

I'm excited. Pretty scared... but also excited.

More updates to come. Definitely let me know if there's anything specific you'd like to see on the Patreon!

As always, thanks for sticking around!

[seeksstaronmewni]

“Against this threat, upon the Jedi knights falls the duty to lead the newly formed army of the Republic, and, as the heat of war grows, so too grows the prowess of one most gifted student of the Force....”

10 years have passed since I got one of the greatest DVDs in the world....

@starwars....

Clone Wars Volume One!

I got this gem of a collector’s item from a local Movie Gallery closing down, and I would never trade my used copy for any other in the galaxy--not even the re-sealed, previously viewed DVDs I saw at a local, now-defunct Fred’s.

Many gifted artists at Cartoon Network Studios, Rough Draft Studios, and Lucasfilm’s divisions of Skywalker Sound and--yes--even THX Ltd. brought this amazing vision of Star Wars to life under the lead of one of my favorite cartoonists of all time...

That’s right. Samurai Jack & Primal creator Genndy Tartakovsky. His team includes...

a sound effects editor & re-recording mixer, Erik Foreman (read more about his work here)....

plus Technical Audio Supervisor/Assistant Editor Jonathan Greber and Digital Transfer/Assistant Editors Chris Barron & John Countryman, credited in the DVD credits when you select the THX Optimizer and press “1″-”1″-”3″-”8″...

many Spumco artists like Mike Kim, Lynne Naylor, @rdaskas​, Scott Wills, and Raymond Zibach, plus big-shot EFX Design artist Michel Gagne and BG artists @shinypinkbottle​ and the awesome David A. Dunnet ...

storyboard artists Bryan & Mark Andrews (maybe JG Quintel as a board revisionist, but I’m not sure since I can’t see the chapter’s individual credits as they aired on CN); Genndy did some boarding too...

Some voices, such as James Arnold Taylor, went from this Clone Wars to The Clone Wars, which recently ended...

the art directors, of course--Paul Rudish and Scott Wills--who’re very important to the art of the series...

...and Robert Alvarez & Tartakovsky made for very good traditional animation, which is surprisingly not as good these days on most Cartoon Network Studios projects.

Now that Disney owns Lucasfilm (and 20th Century Studios Home Entertainment, which distributed the DVDs with @cartoonnetwork), these need to air on Disney XD, Disney Channel and/or Disney+. I imagine that a war of copyright is at hand since Cartoon Network, created by Hanna-Barbera, is owned by Warner Bros./WarnerMedia, a media empire of their own (which, in turn, distributed Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008 movie and the in-home releases of the TV series until 2014).

I remember little if anything of this micro-series when it actually aired, but I probably wasn’t into action cartoons much back then, which is why I remember little of The Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack in my childhood. Luckily, I found a snippet of CHAPTER 18 from a controlyourtv ad for CN/[as]! I recently made a tweet of it too.

In 2009, I started seeing Star Wars: Clone Wars in action... via a “YouTube  Poop” called “IN A WORD THEY’LL ALL BE DINNER” (nothing inappropriate FYI) by UncleChuckTH. This was a fun way to introduce myself to the series; prior to and during this time I saw of Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008 movie’s TV spots and the TV series on CN/Toonami on [as].

Want a sneak peek at this series? Check it out here! That is until Disney+ or some official Disney source on YouTube or wherever else makes an official upload...

[ducktracy]

i see you and your tricks. don’t think you can pull a fast one on me

[pooptoucher4000]

the MODIFYERS short is WORLD CHANGING to me. Chris reccardi and Lynne Naylor are my heroes and have been since I was littleeeee. I forgot it was a nick short!! seeing it play in the lobby of where I WORK fucked me UP I forgot where things come from IM TRYING SO HARD!!! you know I just autism blasted my coworkers with how much I love the MODIFYERS how much I love CHRIS RECCARDI this was after I autism blasted everyone during the prodigy screening about how much I like SHART TREK

[fly-pow-bye]

RIP Chris Reccardi

The Modifyers

Created by Chris Reccardi and Lynne Naylor

Nickelodeon, 2007

[ladydonguri]

Memories...

Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! That's the name of the first show I ever watched from the beginning till the day they canceled it. It was for the first time I watched every single episode from show even several times. I can't belive it was more than 16years.. This series was created by Ciro Nieli and he was one of directors Teen Titans (one of my all time favorite shows ). Lynne Naylor was the show's director, and  Chris Reccardi was the show's assistant director also writer for the Samurai Jack and The Powerpuff girls (Another my all time favorite children show). Thanks to them I had my childhood heroes <3

(I’m still sad that both teen titans and srmthfg never got a proper ending). What's yours first show you watched from beginning till the end?

[fly-pow-bye]

Slumbering with the Enemy

Storyboard by: Lynne Naylor-Reccardi Art Direction: Don Shank Directed by: Randy Myers, Craig McCracken

The Powerpuff Girls invite all the girls of Townsville for a girls-only slumber party. One of the invitations ends up in the hands of a not-so-wanted guest: Moejisha, who is clearly Mojo dressed as a little girl. The Powerpuff Girls see through this disguise immediately, but doesn't want the other girls to freak out at the silly evil monkey in drag. It seems to be a twist on the infamous Devil in Plain Sight plot, except the girls just assume Moejisha is up to no good even when she's just participating in the party games. The episode does change around at the halfway point to give a little variety, and it turns into a decent episode to show that girls can be superheroes even without superpowers. It does end rather abruptly, though. (3/5)

[figmentjedi]

The Modifyers Show Bible was floating around /co/ today, so I've mirrored it over at Archive.org

[bogleech]

Watch the Modifyers again, or for the first time if you’re one of the very few cartoon fans who never did before. Chris Reccardi did animation, storyboarding, character design and directing on dozens of cartoon shows you’ve literally all watched, but this was his first attempt at an original pilot, conceived and co-created with his similarly talented and accomplished wife, Lynne Naylor. Nickelodeon passed it by and the world never got to see a full series with his name on it...

[disneytva]

Disney Streaming Services  To Collaborate With Dreamworks And Comcast In First Company Collab As A Distributor For Upcoming Hulu Kids Shows

Much like Right Now Kapow & Animaniacs Disney will collaborate with a rival studio as they will be distributors of Dreamworks Animation Television shows. This due the ongoing contract of Hulu and Dreamworks that they set in 2018 to produce multiple original shows 

Hulu took part in this week’s Television Critic Association event, where they announced a number of new Hulu Originals including dramas, documentaries, comedies and animated series.

Three new animated shows from Dreamworks will be coming to Hulu including Madagascar: A Little Wild, TrollsTopia and The Mighty Ones.  Here are the details on the three new animated shows from Dreamworks: This shows will also be part of Comcasts Streaming Service Peacock

The Mighty Ones

In every backyard, a secret world exists filled with tiny creatures. The Mighty Ones, follows the hilarious adventures of a group of creatures: a twig, a pebble, a leaf and a strawberry. These best friends, self-named The Mighty Ones, live in an unkempt backyard belonging to a trio of equally unkempt humans whom they mistake for gods. Despite their diminutive stature, The Mighty Ones are determined to live life large and always have fun in their wild world. The series is executive produced by Sunil Hall (Pickle and Peanut) and Lynne Naylor-Reccardi (Samurai Jack).

Trolls Trollstopia

“TrollsTopia will be a new original based off the famous Trolls franchise following Poppy and other enchanting characters from the upcoming feature film Trolls World Tour.”

Madagascar Go Wild

Loveable foursome Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Melman the Giraffe and Gloria the Hippo steal the show in Madagascar: A Little Wild, executive produced by Johanna Stein (Kung Fu Panda: The Paws of Destiny). Capturing the iconic personalities of each of the four dynamos, Madagascar: A Little Wild showcases the team as kids residing in their rescue habitat at the Central Park Zoo. They might be small, but like everybody who lands in New York City, these little guys have big dreams and Madagascar: A Little Wild will follow all of their adventures.

[cartoonexpress]

My r&s stuff has been getting attention from blogs I've never seen before so here's a little disclaimer: I love r&s for everything that isn't John K. Bob Camp, Lynne Naylor, Vanessa Coffey, Chris Reccardi, etc are the ones to admire!

John K is lower than athlete's foot and should be in prison (tho being forced to retire after being outed as a pedo and sexual predator is definitely a good start).

Also fuck Jim Smith for being one of the guys to look away from and do nothing about John's obvious pedo relationship with Robyn while at spumco

[seeksstaronmewni]

Samurai Jack Season 5 in Review: EPISODE XCV

Open your eyes to the beauty of this world... and the truth of our pure-heart samurai.

EPISODE XCV was certainly due as Samurai Jack Season 5 aired new episodes pretty much every Saturday night at 11P... that is, except on 4/01/2017, as the  Season 3′s opener of the filthy Rick and Morty took place. Cartoon Network tweeted of a surprise for April Fool’s Day, which was just googly eyes on their then current batch of characters. Before I found that Rick and Morty took place, I tweeted a contrasting opinion of CN’s surprise with promoting EPISODE XCV.

When XCV aired, though, the wi-fi had too much interference for me to see the episode, so the very opening is all I could see.

“TV-14-DLV”?! This increased anxiety in me, as I would not want to hear “intensely suggestive dialogue” or “strong coarse language” in such a beautiful show as this. It’s definitely a MISTAKE; there’s not even a peep of innuendo or bad language in this episode. [as] online claims that it’s just TV-14-V, which is barely fitting since there’s little violence and few bloody images. It is possible though that the Rick and Morty Season 3 opener (also TV-14-DLV) taking place of XCV’s scheduled airing caused Samurai Jack accidentally stuck with this rating.

/!\ SAMURAI JACK This Program is Rated TV-14-V. Intense Violence

X

We start off quietly in the snowy forest. A crow flies by. The opening credits reveal that Genndy Tartakovsky is the sole storyboard artist on the episode. The text is also in black for this episode.

The credit for character design is shifted as the text’s color is that of the crow. Craig Kellman’s not the only character designer on this episode, however...

More crows gather around, making crow sounds that I never heard before. Still a quiet atmosphere--until

JACK JARRINGLY WAKES UP

AKU IN GIRL FORM?!?!

Like back in EPISODE VI?! or is it just a dream?

Jack swipes his spear around in defense, scaring the crows away. After he calms down, he look up to consider what happened when he fell from a tall tree in the last episode.

Jack hit branch after branch after branch, shouting “Aaaah...” on the way down, and there was a sword-scrape kind of sound and Jack landed on the ground.

Jack sees a trail of blood by him. He followed it.

It lead him to a daughter of Aku, who looks as though died in the last episode’s fight. It turns out, that this one was the one called “Ashi”. I’m not sure from where exactly the blood leaked, but I don’t think that it should be TV-14-V namely for that. She wasn’t slaughtered, either; she just fell.

“Murderer!”

While Jack was looking upon Ashi, his mind was beginning to play tricks (yet again) on him.

“Murderer! Murderer! Killer! Killer! Murderer!”

Of course, Rothchild and his friends can speak English, so I suppose that this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

“Killeeeeeerrrrr!”

“No...”

“MURDERER”

“NO! THEY chose the path! They CHOSE!”

The truth is undeniably that Jack killed 4 out of 7 of the daughters of Aku, but it was only for his defense. It’s not like Jack wanted that; he gave them a choice like his father gave.

SCYTHE FLIES TOWARD JACK!!!

Apparently, Ashi wasn’t dead. Not sure what was up with that bloody injury, but she’s back on her feet!

Jack, yet, is too good to be owned by her. He just kicked they scythe with his bare foot, grabbed its chain and whipped it around her and the branch... all in the complex action styles of Genndy Tartakovsky and his amazing boarding team.

“DIE! DIE! WHY WON’T YOU DIE?!��� screamed Ashi, very discontent in this situation.”I will undo the evil that is you, samurai!”

She was raised to believe that the samurai is evil, but handling anger with hate suggests that this was personal for her. I assume that either (1) being beaten for relenting/not always attacking or (2) Jack killing her sisters made this personal.

“You are very troubled... AND very confused.”

“Aku is the evil one. Not me.” I guess that Ashi was raised in such a secluded society, that she never heard a thing about who Aku is or what he did. For that matter, said the High Priestess anything about what Jack looked like in the first place? or the fact that he was called “Jack”? Regardless, Ashi repeats herself with hateful name-calling (”Scum!” and whatnot).

Jack was thinking about how to teach Ashi best, when the ground began to shake. Was it something that Ashi said? (like “LECHEROUS SNAKE!!!”)

A GIANT MONSTER EMERGED UNDERGROUND!!!!!

The size of this beast brings 2 creatures to mind, who’re mentioned in the Book of Job: Behemoth and Leviathan.

This beast is very complex on the inside, too, more so the dragon of EPISODE XXI, “Jack and the Farting Dragon”.

*ominous music, drums, percussion, d-d-do do do*

Ok. Are we flying or...

Yep. They’re falling.

During this long fall into the unknowns of the beast, Ashi runs up a falling tree and attempts to kill Jack, scratching him with her scythe (the only other strong act of violence in this episode; the rest is more PG/Y7 level).

“Are you kidding me?”

That... was humorously unexpected of Jack to say. Of course he was scratched near where he was stabbed back in EPISODE XCIII, and apparently Ashi learned not her lesson.

She is hit by another tree in another attempt and became unconscious.

The two approached a bunch of holes in the body. Jack, in his righteous nature, grabbed Ashi, surfing a tree and streaking straight as an arrow into one of the holes.

Jack and Ashi were somewhere in the beast... maybe not the belly of it, though it kind of sounds like it, Looks like there’re taste buds everywhere... fields of taste buds!

Aww. Looks like Jack is cradling a little doll in his arms... as if she were a daughter of his own instead of Aku.

Jack then sat down on one of the taste buds or whatever... which gave off some sort of gas or something.

Laughing gas, perhaps?

“My Lord and Master, Aku, may it please you for all eternity: the samurai is dead.”

“Um... I’m right here.”

“Fool! We’ve been swallowed by a monolithic creature! You’re dead.”

Really? Then she would be dead, too.

“I’ve been inside giant creatures before. I’ll find a way out.”

How came Jack out of that two-headed worm in EPISODE XV, then? “There’s no magic. Is there?”

Ashi was still relentless. “I will never stop!”

“Yes, yes. I know. ‘Til your dying breath--but, once you see how misguided you are, you will see the truth about Aku.”

That’s what this episode is kind of about: “teaching the truth in love” to the misguided. It can be pretty hard to do that with an adversary, but Jack’s heart is in the right place.

By the way, about that line “’Til your dying breath”...  to be specific, Ashi’s line was “I WILL KILL YOU AS LONG AS I HAVE BREATH IN MY BODY!” Not that it matters to Jack, but I was conscious of this.

Jack and Ashi are not alone as a bunch of buck-toothed parasitic crabs stomp there way toward them.

These guys have little legs/arms that’re as sharp as a sword. One sliced a leg off of another, and Jack decides to use that leg in defense.

For this shot, “Gooey Splat” sound (052405 on the Cartoon Trax Volume 1 library) accents their blood... or is it jam? Come to think of it, the insides of their limbs are colored as peanut butter.

Some of their stomps make that “phwick” sound you often hear in Spongebob, for some reason (perhaps the squishy surface?). Their jaws snapping also sound like one of the old-fashioned bone crack sounds also used in Spongebob (It’s assumed to be a Horta Editorial/Hacienda Post sound effect).

After he heard a scream from behind (from Ashi??), Jack rushes over to save Ashi from the monsters. Ashi continues to fight Jack who is already in another fight.

Some creature blood (or jam) lands in Ashi’s eyes. Jack uses this opportunity to chain her to his back for safety, struggling to keep Ashi from fighting him. Then Ashi is hit by one of the creatures, becoming unconscious again.

Jack begins to run further into the body, escaping from the crab-like pack. I never thought of a creature’s insides could look of such beauty. It’s like a whole other world in there! I wouldn’t mind living inside one of these guys myself.

In darkness, a voice beckons. “Ashi...

Ashi...

Ashi...”

“KILL THE SAMURAI!!!!!”

Hey... I thought that the mouths weren’t supposed to move on their masks.

Ashi is scared awake by a dream, too, as was Jack. They’re in an area glowing with bright, spiky little plants and dandelion-like balls of fluff floating around.

“What are we doing, Jack?”

One of those fluff balls begins to talk to Jack. Could this be a vision?

“Waiting”, Jack responds.

“Waiting for what?” is a good question, but she assumes that Jack knows the way out and wants to go. Jack is not willing to leave Ashi, believing that she was merely innocent with her way lost... not “pure evil.”

“You’d know about that. Wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“Well. Then, may be, you’ll talk to me!”

Jack’s dark side apparently enjoys company. “Leave me alone”, Jack responded. “I don’t want to talk to you, either.”

Meanwhile, Ashi, with no idea probably as to what’s with Jack, grew tired... until a lobster-like monster grabbed hold of her.

“It’s all my fault; she’s here because of me.”

“Look! Why do you always have to get involved?” Jack’s dark side questioned. Jack himself tried to explain what’s up with this Ashi girl. Then Jack’s dark side noticed that Ashi was gone.

Jack suspected that something took her and decided to use one of this pointy flowers as a potential weapon. Jack’s dark side may as well get himself out of here for Jack’s sake, but Jack was intent on saving Ashi... and beat the slime out of the big crustacean.

“You’re welcome”, Jack replied.

“I’d be happier as that creature’s EXCREMENT than be grateful to you!”

:O how RUDE!

Happier as excrement; huh? Then whose scream was that when the giant crabs surrounded Ashi? but then why else jumped she into one of their mouths?

“What did you expect?” the floating speck taunts him again. “A hug and a kiss?”

Not that she would be Jack’s type, but he wasn’t it in for the love. Just a true, heroic little act of kindness; that’s all.

“Aku! My master! This fool knows not of your greatness! Your kindness!! YOUR UNDERSTANDING!!!”

At this point, he should expect nothing but hate and slander from her.

Aren’t they just nuts and bolts, Jack? Just nuts and bolts. Think that.

“Every thing... every word... every thought that you know... is... WRONG!”

Jack decided that he heard enough and started to teach the truth to her, that Aku has all of this nature destroyed, with waste and monsters and all.

“Where do you think we are?!” he asks her, which is a good question. In what creature and what part are they anyway? That is not important for the moment, though.

“Believe what you may, but, if you open your eyes and let go of the hate, you will see the truth.”

“Die”, Ashi whispered.

Well... at least he tried.

*wsh wsh*

“Rain? Urhh!”

Funny; I wouldn’t think of rain hurting.

“Huh!”

*wsh wsh wsh wsh wsh*

That looks not like rain...

Now Jack must face the challenge of pulling every single sharp... needle or whatever off of himself...

...and Ashi.

“You know? Uh... many people pay money for this. It’s called acupuncture.”

Not even a blink or breath from her.

“Never mind.”

Jack continues looking for a way out, walking through very quiet areas of the body, glowing with all sorts of beautiful colors.

A giant, caterpillar-like insect passes by like a train.

It looks as though it shed its protective leg coverings off. Jack ponders of some use that they could make.

“I like the back fur.”

“You look hideous!” Ashi hisses.

“From you, ‘hideous’ is quite acceptable.”

Not that Ashi meant it as a compliment, but Jack is content enough. It is fashionable, whether or not it looks weird, Blue and green are my favorite colors (or color duo), too.

Climbing up some more vein-y tubes of some sort, a gust of wind blows. “We’re close”, Jack felt.

Still misguided, Ashi, like an anchor, decided to pull Jack down... but that isn’t stopping Jack.

Jack reaches to the point of a dark, acid-bearing pit, glowing with such colorful creatures. This is probably the scene animated by James Baxter, although his cinematic sense of traditional animation is generally more obvious, but Robert Alvarez & Randy Myers’ sheet timing is good enough.

Ashi saw things like she never saw before. “Even in the bowels of the darkest of creatures”, Jack preached, “there is beautiful light.”

Speaking of light, a big white beam of light shone within. Their way out!

Jack had a new goal: “Use the flying creatures to escape and not fall into the pool of acid.

Right.”

Another problem lurked in the dark.

Near the way out, what appears to be a giant fish skeleton chased them! That’s kind of redundant, though, since it hasn’t really a stomach. Being a skeleton, Jack and Ashi could, like, slip easily through it.

The next flying creature is more colorful and fast as lightning!

Literally!

That creature comes to a halt and the two are flung onto some floating, jellyfish-like creatures which look like they have kelp for tentacles. A good place in which to hide, but, if they’re scared enough...

well... they pop. Talk about being scared to death!

*shee-whoosh!*

Luckily, Jack can jump really good, like back in Season 2 opener EPISODE XIV.

It almost looks like Jack and Ashi were blown out of a geyser...

but it’s actually just, like, a pore in the giant beast. Given how many places are inside him/her, we can only imagine the unbelievably massive scale of the creature.

The two fall into the ocean and find refuge on an island nearby. There, the two cough the water out, but Ashi is still not motivated that Jack is not the true evil.

Something about Ashi’s looks in this scene look sort of different; perhaps these models were designed specifically by Lynne Naylor-Reccardi.

There’s just something about it her here that kind of makes me to think of Lynne designing. Perhaps the extra bangs from her hair being wet?

Suspicious of Jack still being “evil”, she quietly and slowly sneaks up on him... until she gaps at something buzzing by--a ladybug. She saw one of them before, back when she was a child in training--during which her mother intervened: “These frivolous distractions are poisonous for your mission; they are not part of Aku’s order.”

Unlike her misguided mother, who killed a ladybug, Jack allows for this ladybug to walk on his gentle hand and fly away.

Then, Ashi drops her scythe and decides to start some serious thinking, and the episode comes to close.

An important question returns to mind: Had the daughters of Aku any idea who this evil samurai looked like?

Lynne Naylor-Reccardi, wife of the late and great Chris Reccardi, returned for one more episode of character design in this series, and James Baxter is credited for “Additional Animation”.

There’s a typo in Grey Griffin’s name (”GRAY” instead of “GREY”). Tara Strong voiced the little speck of fuzz that is simply called a “vision”, and Corey Burton (Star Wars: Clone Wars, Ranger Smith) voiced the crows--or, more likely, the voices in Jack’s mind.

It’s time to talk about what we learned today. What values in this episode can serve as one’s own virtues?

Jack knew that he was dealing with a deadly assassin who was very hateful and believed that he was evil, but, instead of killing her in defense, he chose patience to consider a way to teach her the truth. When the two ended up inside the monolithic creature, Jack chose to save her every step of the way--even while she was trying to kill Jack.

It can be hard to teach the truth to those who are misguided by their beliefs of wrong things, but we must be willing to help one another out, regardless of the situation. Jack was in a dangerous position with Ashi, but he wanted to show her the evil that Aku did (and was). He refused to leave her out--He put a savage enemy’s life above his own, and his patience eventually paid off as Ashi came to think about what both Jack and the High Priestess taught her.

This episode showcases some very colorful creatures that remind me of Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and Wander Over Yonder somewhat, and they are probably the ones animated by James Baxter, whose professional, cinematic traditional animation credits include Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Klaus, The Prince of Egypt, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Enchanted. While the show’s animation is stylized differently, it is a noteworthy effort.

Is the monolithic creature inspired by Behemoth or Leviathan, as described in The Biblical Book of Job? This creature’s insides may be more fictional, but what is his/her actual root? What is the species?

Since there is no language or inappropriate dialogue in the episode, shouldn’t [adult swim] change the rating to, at most, TV-14-V? It’s very misleading, and this episode has some real wisdom to teach. After all, creator Genndy Tartakovsky said: “My goal was to make a show that I would enjoy whether I was a kid or an adult.” This season was one of the sweetest memories of media in my entire life, and I personally believe that it deserves to be a part of every kid’s life. Someone should discuss airing these on Cartoon Network (with respect to censorship)!

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