#so I guess it’s truer to the comics of that era than I thought:

[secretly-a-catamount]

I know it wasn’t part of Iceman’s comic characterization when they making the Fox X-Men films, but making it so that the gay teenage boy would date the one girl his age who would kill him in literal seconds if they ever touched, is actually so retroactively funny.

[adultswim2021]

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law #12: “Trio's Company” | April 18, 2004 - 11:30 PM | S02E02

I would say that Space Ghost's ending truly was the end of an era. I'm not sure how cognizant of it I was at the time, though. I can't remember if Space Ghost's season was plainly stated to be it's last or if it just felt that way or what. But if it did indeed seem like an ending at the time, then what a fucking insult giving us more Birdman to kick things off for phase 2. I mean, Jeuss Christ.

In “Trio's Company” we are treated to a barrage of empty zany jokes about Birdman trying and failing to get in GiGi's pants. She's a beautiful redhaired lady that is making out with every man in the office (and elsewhere) but him. She's based on Gravity Girl from the Galaxy Trio. Their relationship takes a turn when he asks her out and she agrees... to move in with him. Funny? I mean, it's not a bad concept, especially when she brings other dudes over with her (I think they're the dudes from the Galaxy Trio, but I'm so exhausted from looking up “Gravity Girl”, I simply can not bear it). But everything in Birdman's world has no gravity, which is pretty FUCKING ironic because [you get it already, I'll stop].

This is when I officially gave up on Birdman. I might have said that during the write-up for the last episode, but it's technically truer to say so here. I did actively watch “Blackwatch Plaid”, but any and all moaning about “I'M NEVER WATCHING THIS SHOW AGAIN” is basically meaningless for me, a person who will emptily make this threat and then wind up seeing a bad show to it’s conclusion anyway. Me giving up on Birdman has to happen in practice, which it did here when I did not watch this episode on television. I did not actually see this episode until I started this project.

Birdman plays it's comedy with the precision of that brief bit in The Animaniacs where it shows the writers “flipped”. I don't know if this is going to mean anything to any of you, but I’ll try and explain. Literally almost every time when I think about Birdman-- okay, you know how sometimes when you hear about something, like an object or a concept or a person, etc, your brain will sorta identify that thing to you by showing you a brief image of it? Like a flashcard? Does anyone else experience this? Like, somebody says “fishing pole!” and your brain just shows you a very brief picture of a fishing pole to you, so you'll continuing knowing what fishing poles are?

Well, when people mention shows or movies to me sometimes more than a flash card pops up, but instead it'll be like an animated gif, and for me when I think of Birdman I actually think about that brief scene in The Animaniacs theme song under the lyric “the writers' flipped” and it's just two writers with re-re arms bouncing around while they make goofy faces and springs are coming out of their heads. I probably can't convince anyone here that I'm right about thinking Birdman is unfunnily zany in a detestable way by urging you to google the theme song for Animaniacs and look at that short little animation. But I wish I could.

I've explained this before. But some of you like when I repeat stuff incessantly, so this is for you: I attempted this blog one other time. I started a thread called something like ADULT SWIM IN REVIEW or ADULT SWIM: REVIEWED where I just decided to go through every episode of every Adult Swim show in chronological order. I did it up to 2004 or so, kinda around where I am now (yikes!). I dashed it off initially, cuz it was just a message board thread and I was basically just using it as a way to keep track of it for myself, so I'd say stupid pithy things that usually involved some message-board specific shorthand (example: “puppets? compn must hate this one” “Frylock produces a list that would rival Lim da Skit’s!” like, the most inane-sounding inside shit ever). I started over because it’d been so long that picking up where I left off felt weird, and also those early entries really didn’t hold up. Anyway, here's a previously-unpublished write-up for this episode that remarkably says different stuff:

Historically speaking, I gave up on Harvey Birdman around this time. This was the first Birdman show that I intentionally missed. All these Birdman episodes from here on our are exciting and new to me!

So anyway, this episode is really terrible. Like, spectacularly so. I hate every character, I hate every joke, I hate how the story moves... man, I just hate everything about this one.

So okay, Inch High PI is fired for being short. See, his shortness interferes with his surveillance-photo-taking abilities. That's funny, right? Meanwhile, Birdman deals with a comically promiscuous personal trainer who moves into Birdman's apartment after Birdman asks her out on one date. She uses his apartment to fuck dudes in, while never fucking Birdman. Birdman thinks that he has a thread of a shot of a chance getting his cloacae stroked, so he puts up with it. While this all happens, Inch High PI is shown running in at the end of every scene trying to get Birdman's attention (he's small! so it's tough!). Reducto goes crazy at the sight of him (because he's small! Reducto is obsessed with stuff like that!). You get the idea.

The most frustrating thing about this episode is that basically nobody actually has a conversation. That's one of the main things that irks me about Birdman: the characters are crazy joke machines and pairing any two characters in a scene almost never results in a functional verbal interaction. It's like watching bad improv or something. Except, you know, it's a cartoon, where there are multiple stages in production where you have an opportunity to fix that problem. It doesn't strike me as a creative choice as much as just bad writing.

This episode bites and I don't care who knows it. Go away!

EPHEMERA CORNER

The Popeye Show #9: "The Hyp-Nut-Tist/Child Psykolojiky/Cartoons Ain't Human" (April 19, 2004 - 1:30 AM)

At 1:30AM, Adult Swim started airing The Popeye Show. I’m not sure they even promoted it. I think they just needed to fill that half hour suddenly and just decided to plug The Popeye Show on there. I liked The Popeye Show. They showed three uncut Popeye shorts and included little bumpers discussing certain historically significant Popeye facts. It was clearly aimed at adult classic animation fans and not kids. Really cool, honestly. Anyway dipshits who don’t understand that Popeye is great complained, because they thought it was kids cartoons polluting their block. Relax shithead. Popeye is good. It’s a cartoon about a gross guy that kills people for fun. It fits right in to your precious Adult Swim block. It’s okay. They’re going to take it off the schedule soon, anyway.

Swimpedia notes that it was Popeye’s 75th anniversary around this time which I guess means Adult Swim actually was acknowledging our boy Popeye at some capacity. Unfortunately I don’t remember this! But then again, this is around the time I started drifting away from Adult Swim as a regular viewer.