A Geek History of Time - Episode 89 - Cartoons That Deserved More Part I

Episode Date: January 9, 2021

I'm not here to poke holes and suspended this belief. Anyway, they see some weird shit. They decide to make a baby. Now, Muckin' Merchant. Who gives a fuck? Oh, my God, which is a trick on you, baby. You know what I'm saying? Well, you know, I really like it here. It's kind of nice. And it's not as cold as Buckleman's. So, yeah, sure, I think we're gonna settle.

If I'm a peasant boy who grabs sword out of a stone. Yeah. I'm able to open people up. You will, yeah. Anytime I hit them with it, right? Yeah. So my cleave landing will make me a cavalier. Good day, Spree.

If Syscloth it was empty headed, plubian trash, it's really good. Really good group. Because cannibalism and murder, we'll back just a little bit, build walls to keep out the radiance. And it's a little bit of a ground tool.

A thorough intent doesn't exist. Some people stand up quite a bit, some people stay seeing it like a mess. But it just... This is a history of time. Where we connect to the real world. My name is Ed Blalock. I am a world history teacher up here in Northern California. Spending one fourth while actually two fifths of my time

every educational week, teaching remedial reading, and doing all of that over the interwebs thanks to the COVID-19 epidemic. And of late, notably in mentioning the COVID-19 pandemic, I should probably mention here, 19 pandemic, I should probably mention here, that we have been in quarantine, like not just the shelter in place orders ordered by the state, but full on quarantine in my household, because my son actually tested positive. Week before last, we have now been through his contagious period, my wife and I just went and got tested today. And I have to tell you, I have never been happier to have to change a poopy diaper in my entire life.

As every time I change one of my son's diapers, and I go, I can still smell. It really is a paradigm altering kind of experience that I don't recommend to anyone ever. How about you? Well, who are you? I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin teacher up here in Northern California. Also teaching through the magic of the internet, unlike some of my friends up a little further

east of me, a little further north of me, and whatnot. I know several schools that are full returns. So they're school boards voted remotely to send them back. So yeah, I have been sheltering in place. I do not have a child who has contracted it because I don't. But I have noticed that a lot of people aren't wearing masks. So you know it's funny. So you posted about that on Facebook earlier and you know it's interesting the difference that you can see in a distance of, I don't know, between us, it's what, 10 miles? Yeah.

Because our, our Costco even outside of the cast station, nearly everybody, like 90% are masked. I wanna say your Costco is my Costco though, because I go over there to Costco. To the Expo Costco. Yeah? Yeah, really. Yeah, you're shopping at different expo Costco. Yeah. Yeah. Really. Yeah. We're shopping at different times or something. Apparently. Well, I know, well, okay, in the store, in the store, it was good.

It was there were maybe 10 to 20% were wearing their masks as chin accessories, but the rest were wearing their masks. I didn't that's funny. I didn, I didn't say a number that high. I do know, not this most recent time we went, but the time before that, there were a couple of folks who, who told the folks at the front door that they had a medical condition. Mm-hmm.

And so they, they were not masked. And it took a very great deal of effort for me not to grab like signage or something and just beat the shit out of both of them because Sure. If if you are walking around without a nasal cannula, you do not have a medical condition serious enough to prevent you wearing a cloth mask over your fucking face. Like yeah. Like like one of my one of my friends on Facebook Serious enough to prevent you wearing a cloth mask over your fucking face like yeah Like like one of my one of my friends on Facebook Is in is in Tucson Mm-hmm and he has COPD

Okay, he he has to go around he literally has to carry an oxygen concentrator or an oxygen tank And if he gets the rona it will kill kill him. Right. Like, and, and he wears a fucking mask. Like dudes, dudes lung function is 30%. Yeah, but he's not, he's not making this choice due to convenience. He's making this choice due to survival. And there is the difference. student is survival. And there is the difference. Yeah, well, yeah, I know, but you get what I'm saying. Oh, yeah, like, like he legitimately has trouble breathing on a good day. And he still wears a fucking mask. So no, don't give me this medical condition. Bullshit. My wife is asthmatic. She wears a mask with no trouble.

Fuck off. Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, that's that's that's that's been yeah, it's it's and I'm looking forward to the vaccines so When the vaccines come through and they hit us and our families, I will be very Very happy about that and I will gladly get all the shots possible. So yeah, yeah, yeah, heck yes So we talked for 10 episodes about a dystopian nightmare While living in We've spoken for like most of our run about various dystopian nightmares hasn't then kind of been running Undercurrent I suppose so yeah, I'm not even under yeah, it's yeah, but yes So yeah, we we spent 10 episodes talking about,

a figure who has sadly become a fascistic escapist fantasy. And while living through a crypto, at the very least crypto fascist regime and a real dystopian nightmare. Thank you, Gorvidal. Yeah, so I figured why not see if we could find the same thing in children's cartoons. So what I wanted to do is not the way you pitch that. I just have a feeling to end up that way. I said, let's do something light and fluffy. We've been gloom and doom for 10 episodes talking about Batman being a Nazi. Let's let's move on to something lighter and fluffier. Yes. And yet. Yeah, here we go. I'm very interested in.

Yeah, well, yeah, probably. I mean, what authorial intent doesn't mean anything. So we end up reflecting the culture we live in. selecting the culture we live in. Yeah. So, I said, why don't we do three cartoons each that should have gone longer? And of course, as soon as I said that, my three turned into five because that's how I do things. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, because you are not merely a completist, you are an accessivist.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, excessive. That is a good way to put it. I'm merely a completist, you are an accessivist. Yeah, yeah, excessive. That is a good way to put it. I'm an excessive completist. So, all right, so this is cartoons that deserve more. It might be a two-parter, just because of how we talk, but here we go. My name is three-part because of the way we talk, but anyway, carry on.

So, which wouldn't be so bad. So, all right, the first cartoon that deserved more was called the Wuzzles. Did you ever hear of the Wuzzles? I have heard of, I have never seen. Yes, the Wuzzles, all right. Okay. So, the Wuzzles contained the vocal talents of Henry Gibson He was the you will you will know him as the the head Nazi from the Blues Brothers Oh, yeah, get that car license plate number. We're gonna get that son of a bitch Okay, so this is a cartoon that came out in 85 So just a few years removed. Yeah.

Okay. All right. We're not these. It also had Bill Scott, the voice of Bullwinkle. Okay. All right. So this is a cartoon that is set in the Isle of Was. And it's about essentially portmanteau characters that are made of two holy different creatures

who manage to have wings no matter what. Even if they don't have a creature in their makeup that's winged. So there's a bumblebee lion hybrid, there's an elephant kangaroo hybrid, there's a rhinoceros monkey combo and on and on. They all have wings. But the ones that come from winged creatures are ones that can actually fly. And so that's the makeup of the citizens of the Isle of Was. Okay. You use yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Now the antagonists, because there were villains in this world too, all seem to have some sort of tie to reptiles.

So they're still combos, but they're reptile combos. So you had a crocodile dinosaur, a lizard frog, and some sort of dragon bore combo. Okay. Okay. Okay. Huh. Yeah. Okay, okay. Okay. Huh. Yeah, so here's the lyrics to the theme song, because I do think a theme song is important

on a cartoon. Here in the Land of Wars, they're having twice the fun, because every single thing is really two and one. A little bit of this and a little bit of that, and when you add it up you get lots of laughs. Oh, they got originality driven with a split personality. Okay. So and I don't remember the melody. Okay. But yeah. Okay. Kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of low key diversity inclusion. Yes. Everybody's different and that's cool. Yes. Kind of thing. Yeah. Little tongue and cheek about it too. You know, they got a little bit

personality. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, keep in mind, 85. So, you know, as we spoke of the Batman stuff and as we've spoken, I think in other podcasts having to do with the possession movies and whatnot, the idea of split personalities and dissociative disorder and stuff like that was starting to really gain traction. It was beginning to be a thing, okay. So why not do it with animals and then make them magenta and pink a lot? And to make it oddly cheerful.

Yes, yeah. So they also brought in semi-regular characters of other combinations to teach important lessons. They were building a big world. It was clear that they were building a big world. also brought in semi-regular characters of other combinations to teach important lessons. They were building a big world. It was clear that they were building a big world. And they'd licensed the living shit out of themselves. They had figures, they had stuffed animals, they had lunch boxes. I know this because my brother had the Wuzzles Plastic Lunchbox and plastic thermos.

Okay. And Rhinokey, the rhinoceros monkey combo was right there on the front, okay? Okay. Now, this cartoon deserved more than the 13 episodes that it got. First of all, because like you said, okay, wait back up. Back back the truck up.

Sure, sure. Okay. So, so they licensed the ever- ever loving hell out of this. Yes And they only got 13 episodes. Yes Do you have an explanation of what happened there? I have a theory at the end like like worth ratings just crap or I have a theory and it has to do saturation. Okay. Okay. Okay. But, yeah, so.

That's, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Actually, you will find a theme in a lot of the ones that I poke and there are multiple themes that seem to weave through this. Okay. Which tells me a lot more about myself than I thought I'd find out studying which cartoons I thought should have kept on Okay, so First of all, I think that this cartoon deserved more because everyone was different

Okay, like you said second because it was all about the issues of identity even on an island where everyone was greater than the some of their parts Okay, the parts didn't actually matter so much as the choices that they made. And you know, I love that. Um, yeah. Third, the characters themselves were right for all kinds of rich, rich exploration. And they all had very distinct personalities from each other. So what do you do when you have a predator's mindset, but you also you have a predator's mindset, but you also being a bee. What do you do when you are like a grumpy ass herbivore, but you're also a playful ass monkey? Like, you know, like I found that to be very rich

and really cool. Now in one episode, a character adopts a lost baby animal that's unique and cute. And everyone recognizes that it needs to be returned to its mother and the question of responsibility versus the question of desire arises. Can you think of any TV show that's currently ongoing that deals with the exact same issue? Yeah. So, yeah.

No. Meanwhile, in the background, there's an antagonist, Krakcusaurus and he's trying to find a way to exploit it So Okay, there's this undercurrent way to manage to tie this into my current, you know favorite sci-fi geek obsession right Holy shit. Yeah, the wasles did it first. Yo so Yeah, the wuzzles did it first, yo. So, yeah. So there's this undercurrent of a critique of capitalism. I don't know what to think about that now. Like, it's archetypical, maybe. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How is that really that different from water world, you know, where the girls got the world tattooed on her back. It's just lower budget. Um, but and better script writing. Well, I, I, I think we need to go

back and watch water world again and then watching sequel, the postman, because that's what happens when the waters are seated. Um, but. Okay. Okay. I can, okay, I can see that take that's interesting theory. I watched Postman again recently and I really, really do like it. I don't like the end of it, but I did like, I don't like the resolution, but I did like the entire movie overall. I thought it was really well done. Oh, yeah, that was great. It's, yeah, there are so many things about it that are amazing.

Yeah. So I think water will need to rehab it. Yeah, that's great. It's, yeah, there are so many things about it that are amazing, yeah. So I think water will need to rehabbing. But anyway, so it's critiquing capitalism, ultimately. And several other episodes do the same, because it's like, well, we should find a way to, I wanna make money off of this thing. And speaking of critiquing capitalism, this is a show that gets away with

issuing capitalist ideology. At a time where such critiques were all but forbidden by the parent television council. And it's probably because on the surface, it's also kind of an anti-poor thing. But if you go deeper, it's actually anti-the system that makes them poor. Okay. So for instance, Bumble Lion, he's made up of, yeah, okay. Yeah, Bumble Lion. Yeah, okay. It's clever names. I mean, just, yeah, well, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna see some names that are a lot less clever than that. Here, come up. I guarantee

you. So anyway, Bumble Lion finds money on the ground, which had been stolen from the bank. And he starts acting like a dick because he's got the money. In another episode, Crocusaurus takes advantage of Butter Bears. Now, Butter Bears made up of a butterfly and a bear. And a bear.

Yeah, okay. He takes advantage of Butter Bears generosity during a disaster, and he bilks her out of her food supply. Crocusaurus does. So, I mean, in many ways, that's anti-refugee, but at the same time, it's really anti-the system that made him such.

In another episode, there's a plot about them acting more hoity-toity in order to get invited to a party and clearly lampooning the upper-class manners through making fun of the poor, right? Like, oh look at these silly pores, they can't do this. But, really it's making fun of these manners. So it keeps the class structure in place for the suburban moms who make up the parent television counsel.

And I am paying what's going on. And who are really paying half attention to what's going on? Exactly, you council, and I am paying what's going on. And who are actually really paying half attention to what's going on? Exactly, you know, can I panic? So, I do, hearing this, I do wonder if you're giving the script writers more credit than they necessarily deserve for walkeness? Yeah, they could be, but like,

there's many of them that stack up like this, right? Of the 13, I think four or five seem to have a message that capitalism ain't great. In fact, the very last episode is there is a guy who's a tiger and raccoon combo. Would you like to guess what his name is? I, I, uh, tycoon. Yes. He gives them a money tree Okay, and then they all obsess over the money tree

Okay, and and it's it's clearly a send up to the gods must be crazy And also because again, this is the writers making shit for kids crocusaurus tries to steal the money tree Right right yeah, cuz obviously This is the writers making shit for kids. Krakisaurus tries to steal the money tree. Right. Right. Yeah, because obviously. So you asked why it got canceled. Here's why I think it was. This was one of the two... The Suburban moms realized that one of them was actually

wearing a beret all the time. You know, shaped Tiger Vara was like, you know, that would be all. Was a step too far? No, shape, shape, tiger, vara was like, you know, that would be all. Was a step too far. No, sadly, you know, they got too over in their commentary. No, apparently, no, sadly, I think it's, it's more capitalistic than that. Honestly, I think it's because there were two original Disney cartoons that came out in 1985. Do you know what the other one was?

Wait, this was a Disney thing? Yeah, this was a Disney cartoon on network. Well, shit, okay. What was the other one? Well, the other one was my wife's favorite retro cartoon crack, gummy bears. Yes. Nice job.

Yeah. So this one, I also think got canceled simply because Bill Scott died. Oh, yeah, okay. Which is weird though, because Bill Scott also was gruffy gummy and they kept going with them. So, you know, I don't quite know why.

Now, this cartoon was, but I do think that Bill Scott's death and the fact that they had two on, on two different networks, it was, it was on two different networks too. And I think they're like, okay, you know what? Let's just focus on the one. I think, yeah, I think it's, it's a, it's a case of kind of self- know for a fact that, well, I remember clearly more of my peers talking about the gummy bears. Yeah, then I were talking about the wastles. And it could have been, I'm trying to remember which network gummy bears was

on. But I do also remember that for me, ABC, I, yeah, I had a distinct network preference like for my Saturday morning cartoon viewing it was like a ABC had the better stuff. Yes, it did it did because they had Because if I remember it was all right, they had transformers. I don't I'm not sure Well, I never saw transformers on the weekends. I only saw that on the syndicate. That's a good point That was yeah, all right, but you and I lived in different places and yeah. So, so, but, but I remember, you know, Saturday mornings, I wasn't a huge fan of the gummy bears, but the other stuff the ABC had was better than like NBC or CBS stuff. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I did feel like I could have been that could have been part of it. It might have. It might have. Now, this cartoon was subversive, it was imaginative,

it had good lessons, it was well paced, and it definitely had a rich tapestry that it was drawing on for a good story. It had a world that it had created and we hadn't even scratched the surface. And it wasn't an action cartoon, so it was aimed at little or kids, or kids that didn't dig all the violence. And I think all of that

deserves a another look. It deserves a reboot because you could get into serious like, it deserved more than 13 episodes. It should have gone the normal 65 that a lot of them did. And yeah, so that is my first cartoon that I think deserves to come back. What or not come back, but deserved more than it got. So what is the first one that you've got, sir? Okay, so I'm going to kind of talk about mine in ascending order of worthiness. Okay, so this is the least worthy then?

This is the one that I think is cool, that I think deserves more than it got. But like, I would want the other two that I've listed here before this one. So my first one's going to be Tiger Sharks. Now, wasn't that part of a suite of other ones though? Wasn't that with karate cat and street frogs? Yes, yes, yes, precisely. Yes, the action something.

It was a diet version of good cartoons as I was. Yeah, kind of, yeah, yeah. And the thing is it was like the high drops of cartoons. Like, you know, like, these are all right, because I don't want to watch the littles. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, talking about, you know, well, you know, the other network has better stuff, but this ain't bad. Yeah, yeah. And so Tiger Sharks debuted in 87 and they only got one season. And it was it was part of the, with Crab Cats. And, um, oh my god, I don't remember the tiger shark's theme,

but I remember Karate Cat, and I remember street frogs, both of their themes. He's lean, he's mean a karate machine, he's Karate Cat, we love him a lot. Karate Cat. Yeah, oh, baby. Oh, wow. Yeah.

And then, you know, who could do hip hop better than a frog and street frog street frog. Wow. Yeah, I'm big Max. Call me spider. I'm Luke to Luke. Honey loves a red. Where the street frogs. Damn. Yeah. This is why I get lost everywhere I go. get lost everywhere I go. Yeah. You're like Sherlock, you're hard drive, you know, you only so much space in the hard drive, but you know, in your case, this is what it's full of. Yeah. You could be the world's greatest detective, but here you are.

Yeah. So, so the thing is, if you, if you look at the animation of Tiger Sharks, if you make the art design, if you look at, well, I'll keep going here in a second, but it's very, very clear. If you're familiar with its siblings, you can immediately tell that this came from the same production company as Thundercats,

Yes, and Silverhawks. Yes. And Silverhawks. Yes. Okay. All three of them are thematically very, very close together. Yeah. All involves a team with specific archetypes being represented. You have the charismatic late 20s, early 30s leader guy. You have the mechanic who's also a badass, but a support badass. You only see him really become a badass when it becomes absolutely necessary. He's usually an older gruffer dude too. Yeah, older and gruffer. Yeah. And then you have a support, female character who is there to get dads to watch along with their kids.

It's hella gross, but yeah. Well, and it's the Chitara and Tigra thing, right? So like the two of them seem paired, but they're not. Yeah, they're kind of paying me, yeah, precisely. So, and the thing is, part of the reason I'm at all a fan of Tigra Sharks. And part of the reason I mean, I mean, huge, like ThunderCats fanboy

is it's made by Rankin Bass. And you may have heard me mention this name before. I have. I don't know if I've actually like espoused my loyalty here. But Rankin Bass for those who aren't like immediately to waiting with the name. They are the production company. Number one, we were recording this a week before Christmas. And so it's worth noting that they made a whole slew of stop-motion animation Christmas specials over the course of the 60s and 70s. Oh my god, yeah.

That's rank and pass. Okay. The one that I just recently rediscovered thanks to the wonderful people at Consolation 2020 on Facebook is the Life and Times Santa Claus, which is no kidding the closest thing anybody has done to a puppet, like aesthetically, it's like take the line art from the hobbit and the return of the king and make puppets. And I started watching it once, like the year, I think it was the year that it got released, which was 82. I'd have to look it back up, but I was a youngster. I started watching it. I was absolutely fascinated and my mother turned it off because it's a it's a Santa Claus story that starts out with a bunch of

fairies sitting around a table and it's very much not Christian. Okay. And what's funny to me about that is my my my my upbringing was not religious. Like there there there is one time and one time only that I can think of where my parents ever said this is a little bit too heathen for me. And that was and that was this this show. Wow. Was looking just like, I don't think we need to be watching that. And it was my mother who turned it off. I think my dad was a little bit like, well, I was kind of liking that, but I'm in front of me, you know. But anyway, so that's where I can pass. And a lot of the stuff that they did consistently had a very very similar kind of art style.

And you can kind of, if you look at, if you look at the way the series kind of look, you can see kind of how it evolves over time. But one of the things that, how, how, let me, let me back you up just to hair, how knockoff of Thundercats was it? Like, was the mechanic bald and crumpy and blue? He was not blue. Okay. But was like the was Chitara and Tigra their their analogs were they roughly orange and kind of armored? No. Okay. Color wise, color wise there was there was there were notable differences. Okay, okay, because because so the the central conceit of tiger sharks was that the the protagonist team were space explorers. It was a science fiction story. Rather than you know, did they have a schnarrf? I'm sorry to interrupt, but did they have a schnarrf? I seem to remember them having a seal who was an ally.

Yeah, probably. Well, yeah, probably. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. So, the thing is, like ThunderCats, it's science fiction, but fantasy. Only in this case, it's the aesthetic is more science fiction-y less fantasy-like.

Okay. And they are space explorers who wind up on a largely aquatic world. And they have a piece of equipment in their ship called the fishbowl. Okay. When they need to go out into the water so that they can go interact with the natives of this planet who are aquatic, they dive into the fish bowl and through science wizardry, they get transformed from humans into human fish mutants. I remember the opening title now because it involves involves I'm doing that. And I think it even knocks off the song for Silverhawk,

doesn't it? Tiger sharks. Yeah. OK. Yeah. And so the leader of the group was Mako. Mako, OK. Got a huge shark fin on the top of his head.

And his super ability as a fish was that he was able to swim exceptionally fast. And which you know for species of shark that fits. The chitara clone standing actually kind of her head, her hair got replaced by tentacles. The easiest way to describe it. She became kind of kind of octopoid from the neck up. Oddly remained mammalian from the neck down. So we want to see the ship. Breasts, yeah. So the week, yeah.

You know, and so then having transformed, they would go out and do, you know, whatever had to be done, you know, heroically. Interestingly, the villain and his, his minions in the show were also like human fish hybrids, but they weren't humans who became that they were just naturally human fish hybrids like mutant. Okay. kind of picture, which ties in a bit with the bad guys in thunder cats being the beast men. And in this case, the bad guy is not a clone of mom raw, which is nice. And so we were talking about naming conventions. The planet, of course, everything takes place on his name to Wattaro. Okay.

Literally spelled water, oh, water, high f and oh, pronounced Wattaro. I see why you suspect that the writers of the wuzzles were lazy, not as woke, because clearly the writers of the one that you liked were lazy as fuck. Although, although Susano O was the god of the sea on Japanese mythology and they did the dash O thing. Yeah, well, yeah, no, it's true, but you're giving a more credit to the minister of technology. So the thing is here, this has, there is so much potential here. Like the initial idea they came up with is really cool. And just like ThunderCats and just like Silverhawks, I think, will ask their extent.

But like the thing about the Rankin Pass original properties that I, that is like catnip to me is the world building. Like the Thunder Cats existed in what turned out to be a massive world with all kinds of stuff going on, all kinds of characters, all kinds of, you know, weirds. And the same, and you get the feeling like if they had let this last longer than a season, there would have been so much more to explore.

Sure. But I think the writers and the production staff and the art designers, everybody else, were just like, you know what, we're spent. Like, you know, they wound up kind of becoming overburdened by the weight of their own tropes. Okay. The formula, the formula that, like, for whatever reason, whoever was responsible for making

production decisions, is just like, no, no, this is the formula. This works for ThunderCats, this works for Silverhawks, we're going to stick with it. Right. And so, like, okay, we're going to replace part of the central conceit, but the character archetypes are cut and paste. And the relationship between the heroes and the bad guys kind of cut and paste. And so that's ultimately the reason why this is the weakest of my three entries. There's some potential here, but it was kind of just left to die without them really, without them having the energy to put into it to exploit it, to build on it. Well, and again, it was part of a suite of cartoons.

Yeah. And so, and in that suite, you had the comedy, you had the, I don't know what the fuck street frogs was trying to do. I, I shutter to get into the mind of what they were trying to do with street frogs. Yeah. So you had the comedy. It was, yeah, it was, you know, we understand black people and their frogs now. And then, and then you had action, which is what this was supposed to be. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, and the thing is the animation didn't suck. The art quality was, I mean, if you, if you like the art style of rank and bass stuff, the art style, the, the artwork, the art style, the part work was really good. And I mean, there's some promise in kind of, the story lines and the kind of character interaction, there's some promise that this could be really cool. And then they just kind of never went anywhere with it.

Yeah, that's you. And I'd like to see, I'd like to see this number one, this has never gotten even a DVD release. Anyway, which only being one season and not having that many people who were like, oh man, that was awesome. I can totally understand why it didn't. You know, if Cartoon Network could like look at this and go, you know what? And and really, yeah, cartoon network and USA totally should have because they were showing all kinds of wacky ass cartoons. Oh, yeah. You know, yeah. Like half of which was Hannah Barbarra's castoffs, but still like, and how bad do you have to be? A lot of high blows. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, nice. Okay. All right. So that's that's a lot of high blows. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, nice. All right. So that's my number one as Tiger Shark. All right. Well, here's my next one. The Orbots. Do you remember the Orbots? I remember the name.

OK. They were the mighty Orbots. And they came out in 1984. Now, you dig it because it's a Japanese super robot series and it ran on Saturday mornings the year that my brother was born. It featured the vocal talents of Barry Gordon. You remember now? Well, you know, I didn't catch very many episodes of it, but yeah, I'm remembering I'm looking at it now and And they were they were a combining yeah super robot. Yes. Yeah, I guess it's super robot It's like a proto-voltron. Yes. Well, well, we'll get to that

So it featured the vocal talents of Barry Gordon who did Donatello's voice and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Julie Benet Julie Bennett who was was Cindy Bear from Yogi Bear. She also was lowest lane from the Superman 60s cartoon. And Don Messick, who was Papa Smurf. Yeah, Don Messick is a big name. Now this one was about six robots who combined into one. Now that's six robots combining into one. It had three female robots on it, which is decidedly different from Transformers or Voltron to others who also had combining robots in them, which are contemporaneous with this cartoon, and I did the research to figure it out. All of them

had combining robots in the same year. But neither of the others really did it with distinct personalities. Devastator was really just a bunch of different robots, but really all kind of the same note. Voltron was a bunch of distinct personalities, but those were humans piloting the robot lions. This cartoon was specifically about these specific robots, and their combined power is a combination of their personalities and it benefits everyone. Like I said, there's a few themes that seem to run through my shit. Yeah. Here's your free.

Communism. Here's part of the theme song, okay? Heroes will never be scared. Bright light shining together as one. Orbots protecting the world from me and you. Go, mighty orbots. I'm pretty sure this is a Japanese cartoon translation, you know.

Yes. Now. And it's a bit stilted so you can kind of tell. Yeah. So here's the, and I mean the opening theme has like the pretended motion, you know, the lines. Oh yeah, yeah, that's a dash dash line. Yeah, yeah, speed lines.

So our speed lines. Yeah. Yeah. So here's here's the conceit of it. It's the future and a bunch of alien species plus the earth are part of a united planets who use the Galactic Patrol to maintain order in the galaxy. There's an evil criminal organization called shadow Okay, and it's led by the cyborg, Umbra. Ooh, who wants to rule the galaxy? Where is there, right? Yeah. Umbra, all right.

It's a Latinist and just like, really? That's a good damage. You know, as it, hey, you know what? As an English teacher, I'm like, you know what? That's a really good example of us, you know, reading up other languages and stealing, like, you can go through their pockets for vocabulary. It's like right up there with the scientific word for grizzly bear, which just means like, was it?

Ursus Arctos Arctos. Yeah, like, horrible, horrible. Ursus Arctos, it's, it's, it's, uh, Ursus Arctos Horribulus. Yeah. Horrible bear bear Which which you know is is a little bit better than you know the European brown bear arctus arctus Bear bear or no, sorry, it's arctus. Yeah bear bear bear. Yeah. Yeah And they had to add I just okay anytime I talk about grizzly parents. I have to bring this up So so the first European

back Grizzly Bears I have to bring this up. So the first European, or the first Americans, in the white people American sense of it, when the Lewis and Clark expedition got to the far side of the continental divide from, you know, back east, they encountered their first grizzly bear. you know, back east, they encountered their first grizzly bear. And the first encounter they had with one was apparently the most terrifying few moments of the entire expedition. Yes. Because it shrugged off, I want to say it's at least a dozen bullets. Yeah. You know, from, you know, and anybody who, you know, is a gunner like me, something

I feel needs to be pointed out is these things were shooting 68 caliber bullets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. By modern standards, they were firing cannonballs at this thing. And bear was like, I'm sorry, the fuck. Yeah. And my neighbor, my mother fucker, like, it didn't they have to like run and jump in a lake. Like fuck it on. Yeah, they had to they had to flee at the speed, you know, yeah. And then I if I recall correctly, then a mountain lion came and kept them in the goddamn lake for even longer. Like it was there was like some tag team action going on in the wild kingdom there. Yeah, yeah. That's that's one of my favorite notes about loosen Clark.

The other one is that they got all the way over the mountains into the Pacific Northwest, got hosted by native tribes who helped them out by feeding them because they'd run out of their food supplies. And their diet changed overnight from basically, you know, elk, which is all they'd been eating for weeks and they were starting to get scurvy. Change from that to salmon, throughout berries and root vegetables.

Makes sense. And the sudden change in diet left all of them with, with like crippling, and McCullough in his writing about the Lewis and Clark undone encourage. The Lewis and Clark expedition, he points out that, you know, in an alternate timeline somewhere, a couple of tribes in the Pacific Northwest wound up, you know, leaving them all to shit themselves themselves to death took all of their guns and built their own empire. Like because they were they were armed like a military expedition. Right. They had so many pounds of gunpowder and ridiculous. And like there they were armed to the teeth and completely helpless. And you know, I'm just saying the history of white settlement of the West could have not happened if... Yeah. Induced them to shitting themselves more. Yeah.

So anyway, and that's a huge segue, but anyway, back to the main point, or bots. Yeah, so they're fighting shadow who's led by the cyborg umbra. Now that the show centers around the efforts of one inventor or scientist named Rob Simmons. He's secretly a member of Galactic Patrol for reasons I never understood. And thus he is secretly in charge of the mighty orbots. Now they fight for truth, justice, peace for everyone. It's a pretty chill group. Rob changes out of his lab coat and into his omnisuit, which is complete with a helmet. And then he runs the orbots. Now he's not, what's that? I'm down.

Oh yeah. I can so far, this is awesome. He's not known as the mild-mannered scientist by galactic control, by the way. So he has to keep up his secret identity because it's actually not clear. But it's pretty much a Clark Kent subplot. Because Dia, his commander's daughter,

who's a hot shot warrior on her own, despite needing Orbot Rescue on occasion, is hot for the Orbot commander Commander but is only friends with Rob. Wow. Now Rob's Commander, Rondu, is a space elf of some sort. I can't figure it out. And so is his daughter Dia He has the long white hair the ears. He's clearly long lived. He also has psionic powers That's pretty rad now. Okay, the orbots themselves are pretty neat. They're all different sizes and shapes too. They're not uniform So I looked at up here. I'm looking at images. Yeah, all right. So here is here is each or bot in succession. There's Oh, no. Now her name is hella pund all the time. And she is a female robot.

She's the Laura Ingalls of the group. Okay. Laura Ingalls. Yeah. The bossy little sister. Yeah. Needs validation. She's vital to the team because she literally keeps them together. She's the circuit link for the rest of them. And if she's not there, they can't get into their Gestalt form. She helps Rob run. She's the little pink one. Yeah. Okay. Tor. Now, Tor is the strongest. He's the brute. He's very boastful. He's quick to fight.

He's the torso and the head of the Gestalt form. Okay. His the kind of upper body looks optimist prime like. And he's modulated supportive. Yeah. Red, white, and blue. Mm-hmm. Interesting.

You know, this is the Japanese cartoon and the colors of the American flag are on the big, strong, yeah. Square-jawd. Kind of looks like he skips leg day, though. Yeah. Well, he doesn't have to do leg day because there's two other people for that. Now, what's cool is actually that the female members hella show being bothered by his machoism. He's a bit dim, but he's decent enough of a leader that when Rob isn't around, he gets Ono's support and input and he kind of makes decisions for the group. Okay. Now this brings us to Bort. Bort is Tor's opposite. Tor is stocky and bulgy. Bort is

rail thin. He's also nervous as hell and he can reconfigure himself into anything the team needs because of his unique manufacturer. He's frequently neurotic. He's clumsy. He's indecisive. And this is probably due to his protean nature. Now imagine Mr. Fantastic, but without him being a dick. And he's the kind of blue and silver one. Yeah, he's the lower right leg. He's the lower right leg. Yeah, okay.

Lower right leg. And in his addition to the gestalt is that he can alter their hands into all kinds of things once he's part of them. Okay. Yeah, cool. Now that brings us to bow. She's the alpha female.

Even though Ono is really bossy, she is, or she, Bo is the alpha. This is the one who is confident, she gets shit done, and she's competent. She's also a bit of a prankster, by the way, and she's coded to be beautiful as a robot, so you can pick her out pretty easily. Is this the orange one?

I believe so, yeah. With the, you know, very out pretty easy. Is this the orange one? I believe so, yeah. You see with the very clear eye makeup. Yes. And somehow she's an elemental manipulator too. Okay. Once she joins the Gestalt, she's the left arm. Okay. And the whole thing can now manipulate the elements.

Okay. Now that brings us to her twin sister, Boo. Okay, I was gonna say the two to to leaky female robots looking off a lot of like. Yes, they are. Okay. Now Boo keeps bow in line with all of Boo's pranks, right? Boo has the invisibility ability. And she manipulates light and energy and such and she's the right arm and she's why the Gestalt can do all the teleporting invisibility and hologram projector thingies that it does.

Oh wow, she was pretty powerful. Yes, I'll robot. Yeah, and she was my figure. Yeah, she's bad ass. Okay. Now that brings us to crunch. He's the fat one. Yep. He eats and that's literally his power. He can consume anything in his strong jaws and turn it into energy. Uh, he's the lower left leg and he's the portable battery for the group. He literally keeps him energized. Okay. Now, that's really like him. okay, I'm really liking the theme that, you know, every one of them does very clearly bring something to the table. Yes. It does definitely sound like there's some clear distinction between them. And each one of them has their weaknesses without being like weak like there is no weak man in the in the mix right right there is no like why the fuck are you here character?

Yeah, now shadow is trying to rule the galaxy with umbra as its like I said, so they regularly have to fight his grotesque minions. Umbra himself is a big old planet inside of a Dyson sphere. He's too powerful for an all-out assault, but if you fight him at the margins of his power, that's what you can do if you're galactic patrol. Okay. Now, Umbra has people who help him, Draconis, Captain Shrike, and Plasmus, and they help him in his schemes that revolve around destroying or discrediting the mighty orbots. And evidently, the orbots are the linchpin to the entirety of the Galactic control. And yeah, well, that's pretty much a, how to put it. That's a common kind of trope in these kind of series

in Japan as they get written. That's a conceit that consistently shows up. What does the risk of this organization do, man? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And they send out giant beasts and robots, et cetera, so to do this. Now, it's robies. Yeah. So this show only ran for 13 episodes. So another theme for Damien, it was canceled due to a lawsuit that ate up resources because the lawsuit was filed by the people who created gobots. Okay, back up.

Hold on. Okay. Okay. All right. So, this is about a group of robots of different colors. Yep. Who combined a form of guest all robot form? Yes. Who are fighting against a monolithic villain figure and his empire.

I mean, criminal syndicate. Right? Yeah. And they got sued by the people behind the go-bots. Yes. I'm not seeing it. Like it's almost like you expect someone else to have sued them. Yeah. And the funny thing is, you know, the studios that were

the studio, those responsible for, for, um, Voltron, would be doing that because they were themselves licensing the property from the Japanese, you know, studio that originally did. Whatever. And, and right now it's late at night and I'm, you know, well into a very strong beer. So I'm having a hard time remembering, you know, what the, what the original Japanese name was for Voltron. But like, of all the people that could

be trying to sue them, the people who did a not really that great knockoff of the Transformers are not the people that I would be looking at as the ones to bring that lawsuit. And yes, yes, the GoBots were a weak, weak sauce cut paste of the transformers, fight me. Mm-hmm. Fight me. Come at me on Twitter. That's fine. I will, I, yeah, I will look forward to it eagerly.

I get the feeling though that the gobots are high drops of the Transformers, which is Oreo, in very similar ways in that hydrox actually came first. I think the goblets actually came first. I could be wrong. You know what? It depends on how you must say it came first. Yeah. And now this is this is something I'm going to have to furiously look up in a moment here, or we'll be talking about something else. But by the way, Voltron was called Beast King Lyon. Thank you. God, I knew it had Beast Lyon somewhere in yeah, Beast King go Lyon. Yeah. Yeah. So Vultron is a change. So all right. So this this show got sued off the air basically. So it ran for only 13. But it's one

of the very few Saturday morning cartoons that got an actual finale. So the orbots, here's the, here's, I remember this vividly. The orbots find blueprints of what they think is their replacement, and they figure the only way to prove their worth is a direct assault on Umbra, but we know that's of course too dangerous for anyone. So they go for it because Umbra is threatening to destroy Earth's son, and they end up having to do it alone without Rob's help. For the aforementioned reasons, plus Umbra has captured him. They destroyed Umbra and

Shadow once and for all. He didn't escape and he's done. They come to find out it was and I especially remember like just literally the last three minutes. The old blueprints of themselves, The new blueprints, because Rob points out the date at the bottom. And then of course, Ono is embarrassed, and she does the Japanese laughing embarrassed face. And you know, like no machine would move with that much animation. And that's the end of the whole series. And it just kind of pans out from that. Now I think it was a really good first season but there easily could have been more because Captain

Shrike is a pirate captain so there's tons more you could have done there. The orbots already show friction between them so there's a lot of meat on the bone there. At one point Ohno like went off to prove herself and that she could do things on her own so that was already a thing that was already there. Plasmus is another villain who can change himself in all kinds of ways. So you could have him or his whole race or whatnot. You could have infiltration storylines with him. Jirconus could have gotten away and built another mighty robot to fight the

orbits just all in a second season easily. What I love about this show and about this group is that they don't just get to be a bigger robot that can make a sword or be stronger. Each of their abilities, like we were saying, gets shared across to just all making it much more than the sum of its parts. There's again all kinds of issues of identity and self-worth that get brought up in this series and there's lots of insecurity being shown in different ways. There's again, all kinds of issues of identity and self-worth to get brought up in this series. And there's lots of insecurity being shown in different ways. There's lots of opposites finding ways to engage each other in healthier ways. And it's a rich, rich show.

And it's worth noting that half of the robots are female. Which would have been awesome for little girls and boys who dug robots in general, right? I don't know of any toys that got licensed and so there's a lot of money on the table if they could have picked up. I saw when I was doing my image search here a second ago. I did see that they're apparently worse. Some toys, they don't look very good. Oh wow, okay. I think they may have been like in the Japanese market that's like never made it to the States Yeah, and it never the property never got developed in that way because it was again only one season

It didn't get like Kenner has a role in my job. Yeah, didn't get one of the one of the big you know like you know big three Toy makes on it at the time I am I am going to say here. I would really like to see this revived if only to see more development of the relationship between our scientist inventor, protagonist and D.A. Yeah, because he looks like pretty remarkably fascinating character in and of herself. of herself just because the idea of, you know, a genuinely competent, you know, warrior gal is not common. Yeah. And the genre that we're talking about, it's, you know, as, yeah, yeah, just saying.

And yeah, I see what you're saying about space elves, which is its own kind of set of tropes in anime. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's its own kind of thing. So yeah, no, I would totally, I would totally be down for this one also getting getting some more time. All right, give us one more of yours and we're gonna stop the episode after that. Okay, so my next one is, man, I got a pick, which one is this? Because I'm doing this in order.

I'm gonna say, I think my next one's gonna be Pirates of Darkwater. I don't know it. If I had to pick, you know, in like which of these do I most want to see rebooted? Okay. It's not Pirates of Darkwater. It's my last one. But I really would like to see Pirates of Darkwater get some more time. So Pirates of Darkwater was a little bit late for you and me. This is actually an early 90s cartoon. Okay. The fact that I remember this one and talking to a friend of the show Bishop O'Connell, he and I had a conversation about it this afternoon, he remembers it, which just shows what complete dorks

we were going into high school because we were still watching afternoon cartoons. Parents of dark water ran in 91 and 92. And I'm trying to figure out even where to start with this. So the speaking of not terribly original names, the story takes place on the planet of Mer, M-E-R, which of course is Mer, which of course is Ocean. Yeah. Where do we get merman mermaid? And so right off the bat, you can tell this is, you know, gonna involve ships.

It's not so, I mean, come on. But the thing is, there is some amazing world building in this show. The world of mure looks and acts like you'd imagine a Roger Dean painting too. And if you don't immediately recognize what I mean when I say Roger Dean painting, if you're listing, I want you to go to Google, type in Roger Dean Yes album covers. And you'll see what I mean. Okay. He does these wonderful psychedelic fantasy scapes with rock formations that could never exist in reality. And there's one of his

paintings that's of a sea on a mountain top. Like there's this vast mountain top that is just one gigantic lake. He looks like somebody that they would have, like they would have subcontracted out any Boston or Journey album too. Yeah, yes, yes. Yeah, okay. Progrock, you know, Progrock band covers.

This is just like, just think. And it's this amazing, it was like, as close as you could get to a truly psychedelic kind of fantasy world on a broadcast television cartoon. Mm-hmm. The planet is like, it's genuinely fantastical away. It genuinely fantastical, pardon It genuinely fantastical pardon me in a way that kind of brings heavy metal to mind.

There are islands that rise up out of the ocean. There are rivers that flow uphill and the ships and then there are bodies of water floating like on floating or suspended islands. Like there's the surface of the ocean, and there'll be this shelf of an island above it with water on top of that. And so it's this multi-tiered ocean kind of thing going on. And the ships in the show go from writing on the waves to literally the ship of the protagonist, its main sail actually turns into a wing. And it can glide. And that's one of the major ways that they travel. And it's psychedelic. I can't think of a better way to describe it in this way that is amazingly fantastical and yet completely believable.

Like the characters all treat all of this craziness going on in the, you know, geologically hyperactive planet they live on, they treat it as, you know, perilous and, you know, and you know, important, but it's also kind of matter-effect to them. It's just the way the world behaves. Right. You know, and for the world building alone, I would want to see more out of it. But that's not all it has going on. It has a literally epic storyline. The story is a hero's journey story. Okay. The protagonist is Ren, and he is a secret prince. He grows up from, you know, infancy until roughly 18, 19, Luke Skywalker Age, being raised by a lighthouse keeper on the edge of this fallen

kingdom. And it's only when he gets to be age of majority that the bad guy comes hunting for him because he has an artifact, the bad guy once. Okay. The bad guy, by the way, is a pirate Lord named Bloth, who's the size of an ox and needs this big, you know, Ogrish kind of figure, who, although physically imposing, I think this is this was an important thing to me, looking at it at the time it was on the air. He was physically imposing, but he was mostly terrifying because he was a credible leader of a pirate semi-nation, like he had a fleet of pirates under his command. And while he was physically imposing and physically threatening, it was not his physical attributes that made him the big bad. It was the fact that he was acknowledged

as the commander of this floating army of nasties. And so the main character finds out that, you know, no, actually you are the last remaining heir to the royal line of, you know, this fallen empire. And this and what and this item that the bad guy wants is a compass that will guide you to the 13 are important because the dark water in the title is this physical corrupting force coming up out of the core of the planet that the treasures will help you drive back. And if the dark water spreads across the entire planet, we're all going to be screwed. spreads across the entire planet, we're all going to be screwed. Basically. And Bloth wants the treasures. He wants to get the treasures in order to rule the world because he has control over the dark water.

He can extort. He can threaten people with it. And so our hero is forced to flee. He winds up falling in with, you know, a, a, kind of a druid woman sorceress and a, a, a Han Soloish, Rogish pirate character gone good named Ios. And, um, and so, and so it's, it, there are all these tropes out of the hero's journey. And so, and so it's, it, there are all these tropes out of the heroes journey. But it never winds up feeling cliched. Because visually, it's a really heavily non-western coded, which made it, which made it like incredibly rare on TV at the time.

And even to this day, all of the aesthetic cues for the clothing, the physical culture of all of the cultures. So the world of murder, first of all, is Phantasmagorical. Then on top of that, all of the aesthetic cues of the physical culture of the people living there is taken from non-western sources. There are very clear Middle Eastern influences, there are very clear Asian influences, and it's done in a way that it's very clearly not knights and castles and feudalism. Nice.

But you don't look at it, and like with so much stuff in the 80s, you don't immediately look at it and go, well, okay, it's Japanese. Right, right. Or it's not a Wujia film, it's not clearly this is all Chinese. Like, it is genuinely to a Western European kind of audience, it is genuinely exotic. And even the folks who are from an Asian background, it would look exotic because it is a blend of things that becomes its own thing. And then then big, big idea here. The heroic trio in the series, the main character of the sorceress and Ia's, the pirate. They are all coded as non-white. Okay.

Okay. Even, even our hero, Ren, he has blonde hair, if I'm remembering right, he has blue eyes, but his complexion is a couple of shades darker than Mediterranean. Okay. He is, he is, they are all of them. Okay. You know, now that you mentioned him, I can almost picture the kind of splash screen in the beginning of the cartoon.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Like you standing on the poop deck of a ship or below it or something, yeah. Okay, all right. All right. And the Rogesh anti-hero companion

is voiced by Hector Elizondo. No shit. Yeah. That's cool. And is coded as ethnic. Like, you know, I mean, in that kind of sort of gringy way that stuff would be in the 90s, but still, it's like he was, and the thing is, they're coded as non-white, but all of the characters, all of the characters, every character in this show had complicated inner motivation.

Cool. Well, okay, Ren kind of didn't have complicated motivation because he's secret prince. He's, you know, Dudley do right to the Mounties off to save the world. Well, yeah, your protagonist is rarely a complication, or a complicated inner life when it's cartoon. It's everyone around him that colors all the spaces in. Yeah, but his two main companions both have back stories

that mean that at times they become a liability. Okay. Because they have debts they haven't paid because they have loyalties or issues that get in the way, because in the case of one of them, oh, also, Roddy McDowell was a voice actor in the original pilot for the series, Roddy McDowell did the voice for a non-human character,

a monkey bird. Why do I know that name? Roddy McDowell. Yeah. Planet of the Apes. OK. Yeah. Any number of other things, but that's

the first one that comes to mind. He was one of the chimps scientists in Planet of the Apes. OK, yeah, yeah. And so in the pilot movie for this series, he did the voice acting for the monkey bird, who is kind of the trickster, kind of the snarf, but a lot smarter than snarf ever was, and occasionally actually useful. And that character is not even like human and is, we're between a pet sidekick and traveling companion, like depending on how you want to call it. Right.

Even, even he has a couple of points in the storyline where it's like, well, okay, can we really count on him when we need to? Because, you know, he's basically kind of selfish. Right. Well, okay, can we really count on him when we need to because You know, he's basically kind of selfish, like you know and and there was and there was genuine nuance. There was genuine depth To the to the supporting characters the storylines were PG, but but serious They never they never got you know overtly, you know terribly violent or gory, but it was definitely, you know, fated the world as it's stake. There was definite peril for the main characters.

The villains were a truly meaningful threat. And if it had been given more time by the end of the second season, Ren had recovered eight of the treasures of rule and had managed to drive the dark water back off of half of the planet. And then we never got to see how the story ended. So yeah, clearly it's left with some unresolved part of it that Yeah, clearly it's left with some unresolved part of it that make it worth bringing back. Yeah, and I'd like to see more of Tula if nothing else. That's a sorcerer's character. Because, you know, I was in early high school. She was hot. I'm just saying.

I'm not ashamed to admit it. You know, I know a plenty of my contemporaries would say similar things about I want to see more of Chitara. I'm, you know, and who am I to judge? Okay. Like, you know, um, but yeah, you know, and this was, this was genuinely good story writing and genuinely good adventure story that just

Fisal out and ended and and we never we never got we never got a real ending And I'd I'd like to see I'd like to see the story. Yeah finish. Yeah Well cool all right so Well, cool. All right. So, there ain't nothing to glean here so far, ultimately. So I had the wuzzles and the orbots, and that was it. And you had the tiger sharks and... Pirates of dark water. Pirates of dark water. All right, so.

It had a barbaric property. Was it really? Yeah. Okay. So drawing themes, you are drawn to the sea? Well, I'm in an aviary of Brad, so I suppose it makes sense. Yeah, as you can say, and you grew up part of your time on Hawaii. So the idea of swimming, the idea of that underwater world has attraction to you.

Okay, yeah. And it's still heroic because you're following Mako and or what was the pirate kid name? Ren. Ren. Ren. Ren. And you absolutely want to be the griffin-dorian bard leader. Sorry, Paladin. Paladin says what? Yeah.

What? So, okay. So I honestly. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm seeing themes there. I'm seeing themes there. Yeah, probably. Yes.

Yeah. Whereas I am apparently about characters who have rich possibilities with their identity and, uh, and push back a capital is once. At once? Yeah, living in two worlds at once. So, all right. All right, yeah, and the endy pushback against capitalism. Yes.

Yes. So also I apparently only like shows that lasted 13 season or 13 episodes in a season. Yeah. Dude. Yeah. Well, we'll see if that holds because there's still three more to go. Okay. Yeah.

This is true. Yeah. You have a significant portion of your thesis left to share it done back So all right well, I think we've got recommendations for people just on those four cartoons alone although I'm trying to think of like So I you remember I love the Twilight Zone and I yeah, I found the 1980s version on DVD and I have it. Yeah. Oh, dude. And I found, um, oh God, what else did I find? Oh, I found the D&D cartoon, right? And I have that

still the department from you. Yes, you do. How many episodes did that wind up getting? 27. Okay. Yeah. Still not enough. No. That that would be an honorary spot on this list. Yeah, it does. Yeah. Poor one out. But I'm just I'm thinking in terms of like there've got to be some sort of like Australian distribution company or something for some of these. And I bet you if you look up like Karate cat and street frogs, you might find Tiger Sharks attached. No, I actually know Tiger Sharks as a series has not received any DVD release as part

of anything nowhere. You can find it on YouTube because you can find everything on YouTube. True, true. Okay. Including the life and times of Santa Claus, which is the rank and best puppet show that my mother turned off because, you know, oh my god, this is too pagan for me. Yeah. The woman who, you know, yeah, anyway, just like literally the only time in my upbringing, it was like, I don't know, paganism, I don't know. You know, that's like, you know, I hear stories about, you know, millennial friends of mine

who were like, oh yeah, my parents weren't sure about Harry Potter, right? Right. Or, or might be younger than millennial, but you know, you know, folks notably younger than me, saying, you know, yeah, my folks were unsure about Harry Potter and I'm like, I never had anything like that happen. And then randomly, this memory of the lifetime of Santa Claus popped into my head and went,

oh my God, I'm not actually turned that off because that was not appropriate. Because, yeah, because too pagan, like. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, because because to pagan like So if if people need to yell at you about my new or bots, where can they find you to do it? You could find me at da harmony on the Twitter and on the Instagram You can you can find me there for that you can find me every Tuesday night on Twitch.tv forward slash capital puns. But I'll be making jokes and puns and stuff like that. So, okay. Yeah. And where can people find you if they want to argue with you about the milieu of target sharks? Well, if they want to argue with me about it, I'm more than willing to have an open conversation, because you know, it's cool, but I can be found specifically at Mr. Blalock on TikTok,

and at EH Blalock on Twitter, and EH Blalock on Instagram. And if you need to yell at both of us for some reason because of some remark we've made about you know grizzly bears that You you think is is flawed Then you can find the both of us at geek history time. Yes on the Twitter machine Cool All right, well then for a geek history of time. I'm Damien Harmony And I'm at Blalock, and until next time, Thundercats Go!