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popculturebuffet · 4 months ago

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Pirate Month III: Raw Toonage Hosted by Don Karnage (Comission by WeirdKev27)

Ahoy me harties and welcome aboard to pirate month! For those new to the tradition each year kev has me look at a bunch of piratey media, yarrgh barrrghh. IN the past we've looked at mainstays like our flag means death, muppet treasure island and pirates in an adventure with scientests both in book form and it's stellar film.

This year's a bit more ecletic as in addition to more pirates we have some garfield, a real life treasure hunt involving muppets, the wiggles and some donald duck for ya'll. And to start we've got the strangest one of all

Nah we'll do that next year. No this year we've got an episode of Raw Toonage.

Raw Toonage is an obscure Disney show cobbled together out of spare parts. That's not an exageration either: See early in it's production Bonkers was running long. For those like me who aren't exactly familiar wtih the show beyond "I'ts about animated actors and a cat and he got beaten up by all darkwing ducks mortal enemies that one time", Bonkers was set in toontown ala roger rabbit, taking the same basic premise of toons as actors, and doing it's own thing. The title character's show got canceled shortly before the show and he became a cop to start the show. With Bonkers taking a while due to rewrites and what not, they decided to make some of the actual bonkers shorts. Around the same time Micheal Eisner got the rights to belgan comic Marsupilami, a weird creature with a tail who started in the comic Spirou and Fantasio before his creator, owning the rights, spun the character off on his own. Disney would later loose the rights hence why this series and Marsuplini's spinoff aren't on disney+.. though you'd be forgiven for thinking the reason was because it's friday I guess given House of Mouse and the Weekenders remain not on the service.

Hence raw toonage, which aired the two shows along with Totally Tasteless Video, random weird pop culture segments designed to pad out the run time.

To make this frankenstiens monster weirder, and the reason we're here, each episode was hosted by a diffrent disney character. Scrooge got an episode, Webby got to be in the opening credits for reasons, Ludvig Von Drake got one, Sebastian from the little mermaid got one for some reason, and naturally the fiercest pirate to ever fly the skies till he popped out a kid to take up the mantle, Don Karnage lead one.

So come with me as Don Karnage teaches us to pirate, Bonkers tears my soul out, we learn what the spud channel is, and Marspulni plays some hockey while I try to squeeze in a shorsey or letterkenny refrence. Possibly both.

Let's begin. Don Karnage opens the episode advising the audience and being told via mail he's going to to host the segment. He prostests gets another letter on with the show. More on him later

For our first Segement Bonkers plays sherluck bonkers and I pray for death but death won't come. This segment.. is horrible> It took me a few sittings over several days to finish it. It's that bad. It's a never ending horrific loop of "GET IT HE'S A DETECTIVE WHO CAN'T DETECT NO GOOD" for 11 minutes. I.. can't overstate my hatred of this forgotten segment of a forgotten disney show that I wish I forget. It is NOTHING but Jim Cummings doing a doofy mildly annoying voice and schitck that was old when Mickey was just a cow traumatizing glimmer in a young walt disney's eye.

I can't even riff on it: it's just the same thing for 11 minutes. At least when Kevin scarred me for life wtih An American Carol last month I could baffle at how out of touch it was. This is just.. nothing. It's not worse mind you, but at least Fraiser Crane mowing down the aclu who are zombies for some reason is a level of baffling horror you just don't get every day. This is nothing. Just 11 minutes of my life I could've spent playing more persona 5, or reading more golden age batman as he works to kidnap the joker from the hopstial to change his brain

Or deals with a man who is ugly thanks to fraternity hazing

Or batman's never ending war with slot machines

I'm saying I had better uses of my time but I also needed the money.

Don Karnage's next segment kinda happens. Fun Fact: he's only in about three or four minutes of this episode and they really don't use him to his best. This is a waste of your jim Cummings. granted so was the last 11 minutes so maybe I was still just a wee bit numb.

Thankfully the Tottally Tasteless Video segments better. A couple does some channel surfing with weird channels like watching candle wax before settling on the potato channel and we get two or three glorious minutes of various pottato programming, mostly potato starskey and hutch. Which is something I didn't know I needed. I'm sad this wasn't brought back in the 2000's, I needed potato degrassi. "When in doubt you kiss potato craig?" did you erase potato clair from your memory? Does Jenna still tell potato KC to play basketball? I gotta know. But it's genuinely charming fun nonsense.

Our final full segment is Marsupilami. His segment is just some fun Looney Tunes style nonsense. It's not on warners level, but it's still some fun as some obnoxious guy played by jim cummings freezes over the lake. I expected our weird friend to do a bugs bunny but instead he's more oblivous, not getting this guy needs to give his balls a tug. It's just some fun slapstick as maras oblivously gets dunked on only to oblivously turns the table. Ther'es just a nice zen charm to the guy, reminds me of goofy. A simple segment but it works.

The final one has Don Karnage finally find some treasure...

Yes folks as advertised up top Captain Hook himself cameos out of fucking nowhere to rescue this wraparound. Seriously though, most of this wrapround is eh. Karnage CAN be better but Jim Cummings has nothing to work with. Finding out disney's two best pirates, go jerk off in a lake jack, not only know each other but have a weird rivalry and history we know nothing about... it's amazing. Truly spellnbinding. The way Hook taunts him about being a sky pirate, the way Karnage claps back about sky pirates making him obsolute, the suddne esclation to a goddman swordfight that's all too short and hook ending up winning as he should and heading off with smee and the treasure.. it's all so good. It's two minutes too little. It's the greatest weird disney crossover since this

I still need context.. like who tops. Same with Karnage and Hook. Why are they like this? Will they fight again? What do baloo and peter think of each other? have they teamed up. I woudl've preferred just a full on tailspin peter pan crossover with peter pan and hook also as furrys over this, but i'll take what I get

So yeah this episode ends great, has some potato fun.. but that's.. all you really need to watch> Marsu is fine, but i've seen better and Bonkers is like living in a living nightmare. It's a neat curosity .. but it really dosen't use Don Karnage well. Like Bonkers it's just the one joke of "GE TIT HE'S BAD AT FINDING TREASURE" We deserved him and hook fighting the whole time, and maybe having some hardcore sex to top it off and releive the tension. Does anyone actually WANT that... I dunno. I'm just curious how Hoook is in the sack. Smee won't return my calls. I'm betting he's really weird and his penis is also wooden and he knows how to use it. I"m not even attracted to him I just want to know how that works. And on that horrifyin thought thanks for reading.

#pirate month #don karnage #tale spin #bonkers #raw toonage #marsupilami #cartoons #disney #disney afternoon

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popculturebuffet · 3 months ago

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Pirate Month III: The Wiggles Movie (Comission by Lachey V )

Ahoy me hearties and welcome back to Pirate Month III a look at pirate media and in this case media tha thas a pirate in it.

Today we're looking at the 1997 Wiggles Movie as Lachey has a lot of weird microfixations and this being the blog it is I support that. This is what he wanted when offered a part of pirate month,. The WIggles movie is pirate adjacent, but still a lot of fun. For those who haven't heard of them the wiggles are an australian band aimed at kids formed by three men studying child devleopment who happened to be musicains and decided to make a childrens band and their musician friend who they brought along for the ride. They've gone through multiple iterations, but we're focusing on the origianl fab four. In 1997 to expand their reach after a few succesful vhs takes and albums, they launched this movie. It was a gamble as in australia three year olds get free tickets which should be a thing everywhere.. but it paid off: theatrically it made back it's budget and it waas a success on home video. It later came here direct to videos. I don't have much other than that on background.

The Wiggles movie is... to put it gently.. a tad nuts, the story of a bumbling magicain who steals lead wiggle (the yellow one) greg's magic wand from a childrens party, ends up persued by the wiggles adopted daughter/younger sister/dinosaur dorthy who they spend the movie gaslighting by refusing to acknowledge her brithday to hide a suprise party instead of just saying happy birthday and not telling her about the party.

This one's going to be a lot of fun to talk about and with not a lot of intro to cover (I felt a full dive into the wiggles neat backstory wasn't fully necessary), let's begin under the cut.

The plot is really simple but i'm not against it as just as a comedy films plot can be pretty straightfoward to cram in jokes, a film for young toddlers dosen't need to be an epic generatoinal tale of the wiggles battle against an evil wizard. I'd love to see that, but that's not what five year olds are coming to see and i'm not the target audience.

The film follows Wally, an inept magician living in the shadow of his grandpa Waldo the maginifcent. He reacently died and the local magic club is holding a contest for the winner. Wally badly wants the wand as he thinks a magician needs it when the guy running it assures him no you just need self confidence dingus. Wally is played by stage actor tony wally.

So while peddling around on his trike wallowing in his own lack of confidence, can relate, wally comes across the wiggle doing a kids party becaus eit's what they do. If you want deep lore about how greg wears yellow to honor the bananana man who gave his life to save him again this isn't the movie. I will make that movie someday I promise, but this isn't that.

The film works for what it is: while I do prefer my kids media that tries to appeal to adults theirs no shame in making stuff for young kids. I may not enjoy this because i'm 27 years past the target demo.. but I can repsect the craft, how the wiggles at the time , Anthony Field, Jeff Fatt, Murray Cook and Greg Paige, have a LOT of manic energy. Their basically human muppets ala peewee herman and I can see why kids love them. Personality wise there isn't much: Greg's the leader, Anthony is constantly hungry, Jeff has untreated narcolypsey they constantly wake him up from and Murray drives. But they really work best as one singular unit and don't really need a ton of dividing traits kids would loose track of. Their just four goofy loveable guys who sing songs what good and have a dinosaur who may also be their sister or they've been raising since she was a baby or after a burglar killed her parents.

Greg happens to be doing a magic act so Wally does the natural and noble thing: HE'LL STEAL IT AND NO ONE WILL EVE RKNOW. Naturally dorthy catches him because Wally is a bit of a klutz. And because the wiggles have been gaslighting her.

Yeahhh let's talk about the other main plot which is intertwined. Dorthy is there to see the theft because it's her birthday.. and the wiggles are acting like they forgot. Now they DO have a reason for this: their having a suprise party and she can't know!

Yeah it's never come up before in the 600+ reviews i've done on this blog but I HATE this stock plot. So much. Yes I get it, you can't let someone know your having a suprise party from them. It's in the name. But the problem I have with this plot is the part where the people throwing it either act like they FORGOT about the birthday or can't go. The latter is a bit more understandable. The comic strip heart of the city used that just this week. I shit you not

This one admitely worked better for me as it's revealed every excuse they had, going shoe shopping , getting their hair done, makeup etc, was all one of her presents. It's still not perfect, but it's about as close you can get to me liking this trope.

In contrast the wiggles movie.. has them all claim to forget her birthday entirely. The wiggles, wags the dog and his various children he adopted either out of love or for the money it's never explained, Captain Feathersword, Henry the Octopus. They all pretend to not remember... for no reason. It's why the trope sets me off so much: you can make up a fucknig excuse. YOu don't have to act either suspicious as fuck or the mayor of jackass town who forgot their friends birthday. Just agree to it for now or make up an excuse. I didn't go INTO this knowing conciously i'd have the perfect counter argument but the heart story really is: yes they lie, yes they dispaoint her but the big twist and the dramatics of it help. Heart is someone who LIKES dramatics, she probably loved this. Where as Dorthy is.... well she should be 30 by my count as jeff was 40 in 1997 and we get a child flashback where the wiggles promise to always be there for dorthy. The good news is it's actual kids playing them. The bad news is those actual kids sing hot potato

I will get back to this "song" later. But for now just know it sucks and I hate it.

Point is this is her only family we know of , her best friends.. telling her they dont' care about their birthday. Like fucking christ just ADMIT it's her birthday. It's not that hard. She ends this subplot dispoindent planning to mope at home and ONLY ends up at the party because an inept magician happens to be performing there. And yes I know what some people reading this are probablys aying "Jake it's for toddlers".. but I see this plot so fucking often in stuff not for toddlers done the same way. I once saw all of Ponyville break pinky pie's spirit because they lied to her about her suprise party. Gratned part of that was also making applejack lie as she' sa very honest person but my god. Just admit you kjnow what day it is, your going to the party they think their having, and be done with it. And againt here at least she's throwing a party and dosen't know it's her own birthday, I get there's some neurosis there working against them... but if the choices are hurt your best friend or spoil the suprise... SPOIL THE FUCKING SUPRISE.

... I.. didn't agree to reviewing the wiggles movie expecting an angry tangent about a trope in media I dislike. Shame on me for not being more prepared.

So after a child tells them all what happened Greg does want to find Dorthy so she can get to the birthday on time. The fun thing is... Greg.. isn't worried about wally. He's heard of him. Greg knows everyone in town. Greg's the man. He knows he's harmless just a bit self loathing and bumbling.

So the rest of the film is pretty much just: dorthy and wally go somewhere to try and get the wand fixed, while the wiggles go somewhere, possibly somewhere they've been to find them. That's about all you get. It does work: the wiggles parts are mostly excuses for jokes or songs, while the dorthy and wally part has him slowly gain self worth by befrending wags and captain feathersword, and foiling the rose burgalar what killed dorthy's parents.

They even dance on stage. I'd ask at this point if it was wierd I kinda ship these two as their support of ecah other is adorable as is the fact that while pissed and trying to fix gregs wand after wally done breaks it, Dorthy geninely wants to help wally an dat the end Wally wants to tell greg himself and replace it , realizing he did a bad thing. But honestly... I ship so much weird crossover stuff that this is a drop in the bucket. I ship nifty and young neil. I crossed the threshold of sanity.. also nifty and hooty would make a good couple. Just saying.

The songs... aren't bad but aren't for me. Their fun have a lot of motion and I paticuarlly love the openign song hey there wally sung as a theme song for him as he pedals along, but mostly ti's just.. okay. it's not BAD music, but music can be good and still not for you. I do like the number where they caper underwater, and the medly over the credits and honestly DID want to go over all the music in this film.. but I just don't have any thoughts on it other than "this is pleasing to he ear and oh look i'm zoning out." i do give them credit for doing a pretty much all new soundtrack for the film though, with only a few signature songs thrown in. Enough to please the kids watching but give them some new faviorites

There is one song I do want to talk about... now where were we

Ah yes. I've heard the regular hot potato, it's not bad, a lot of fun, and I can see why it's one of thier biggets hits... now have a bunch of children tonelessly sing it and you've got my own personal hell. I don't hate kids, I respect media for them and despite all the jokes do like this film.. but I don't like "kidified" music that dosen't try. The wiggles... usually does, making genuine songs that just happen to appeal to kids. It's not for me but I get why their superstars. But this is just.. gahhhh .And I point it out as besides the whole gaslighting dorthy thing, which while not great is more inherent in that stock plot than them being bad storyteller, it's the only part of the film that really infuraties me. I could overlook the birthday nonsense to enjoy the vibes, but this... why did anyone ask for this.

So before we talk about wally some more, let's talk about the wiggleds other friends. We've got the octopus who wears a sailor hat, so you know he's cool and I genuinely mean that. His segments fine and I do like the underwater bits with the wiggles. Wags has a bunch of kids the waggettes. I can't tell if this is a heartwarming adoption, a donald duck situation or a bender rodregiz scammnig child service situation but i'm going with the forth. They peform a weird song that enchants wally.

Finally ooo it's captain feathersword. His song's a lot of fun, his actor hams it up nicely and his gimmick of just tickling people and smugglign cocaine is delightful. And he at least offers Dorthy a dance to distract her and thanks wally for saving his crew member. The wiggles friends aren't bad, their fun enough it's just not really anything for me... which given i'm 8 times the target demographic is fine just fine.

Wally does get a nice little character arc: he dances on stage, stops a robbbery, and realizes what his magic coach was trying to teach him: it's what's inside that counts my friends it's not the peel it's the nana. So wally decides to enter the magic contest not to win for himself but for dorthy so he can give greg his granpaps wand.

The magic contest is genuinely hilarious: wally is up against his douchey rival, whose only real roll in the film is to show up and be a dick to wally: he shows up in the intro to mock him, drives by to mock him, does so AGAAIN in the climax as he's trying to register, and does so AGAIN in the dressing room. At this poitn i'm not convinced he dosen't pop otu of wally's closet in the middle of th enight to mock him too.

His big trick is also just.. tosisng a bucket of glitter. Which I gotta admit is impressive: avengers endgame probablyw oudlnt' of happened if dr strange just had a bucket of glitter hanging around to throw in thanos eyes.

But lucky for wally he too has mastered the blade.. and the bucket of glitter. He also inherited his grandpa's outfit and magical trunk so he wins as you'd expect

The ending is rather sweet. Wally encourages Dorthy to come with him after they go back to the wiggles house and OH CHRIST I FORGOT THE DOOR

This horrifying monstrosity opens the wiggles house and tests them or dorthy whenever they wnat to enter. Thankfully they pass as this film was about to get a LOT bloodier if they failed. I don't know if ti eats them, puts them in a saw trap or just sicks the tall man on them but frankly i'm better off not knowing. Really happy they phased this guy out after season 1 of the tv show. I don't know how many 90's australian kids nightmares he still stalks but at least he stalked slightly less.

So they go IT WAS A SUPRISE PARTY and yeah yeah but I lke the bit iwth wally: wally genuinely apologizes, is accepted by the wiggles who are like "no harm no foul what's some theft between friends" and as you'd expect greg gives him the wand. and look this flim is predictable, kind of insane.. but i'ts charming. The wiggles movie didn't give me much to analyze: it's a simple work and does what it does well. But I can't deny the wiggles charisma, creatvity or charm> even with the stock plot I hate... I still like this movie. It's relaxing which is what a film for toddlers should be but not SUPER obnoxious for the adults watching.. Not full on something they can enjoy too, but not something that will drive them insane being played a hundred times. It also made me want some fruit salad and that ain't bad. Thanks for reading

#the wiggles #the wiggles movie #dorthy the dinosaur #captain feathersword #wags the dog #film #australia #musical #pirate month

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