The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - Bonus: Soul Music Animated Adaptation (FAAATTTHHHAAA!)

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, usually read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, we talk about the 1998 animated adaptation of Soul Music.Singing off-key! Christopher Lee! FAAATTTHHHAAA!Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretWant to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Terry Pratchett's Discworld - Soul Music - Interview - YouTubeDiscworld: Soul Music Soundtrack - YouTubeBernard Wrigley - A bunch of sea shanties - YouTubeThe Greatest Story Never Told - TV TropesKill the Wabbit Metallica Version - YouTubeMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com 

I don't want lots of well-meaning advice. I want really bad meaning advice. I want pure sabotage. Hello and welcome to the Two Show, My Key Fract, a podcast in which we are usually reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, one of which is time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan.

And I'm Francine Carroll. And today we are talking about soul music, the animated series. All seven episodes. All seven. I'm so sorry. I made you watch seven whole episodes, Francine. It was quite, I mean, you sound sarcastic, but there's quite a lot of bad TV to watch all in one go.

It was not that bad. Note on spoilers before we go on. We are obviously a spoiler-like podcast, heavy spoilers for the book and animated series soul music. But we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series. And we are saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown,

until we get there so you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us. On a motorbike, cull together from various parts, buying in orangutan in a cellar. Excellent. We got my bike in for you last week. Thank you. So yeah, soul music, the animated series,

this was released in 1998. And it's the second Discworld adaptation from Cosgrove Hall Films. Second and last? Yes. They just did the two. They did Weird Sisters, which we talked about almost exactly a year ago.

We did it in May. It was May last year, because that was our glorious 25th episode. Of course. So yeah, they were the only two that they did. Which is a shame they only did the two almost, because Pratchett was saying before this one came out, he was hoping they'd do a lot more. So I wonder what happened there.

I don't know when they shut down. We looked into the history of this one a year ago, didn't we? Because we were trying to find a way to give them some money because we felt bad for pirating the content. Yeah, with Weird Sisters, unfortunately, we ended up having to pirate it. So we wanted to see if we could do something. But yeah, I'm not sure when they shut down.

They didn't do a whole lot. But there were quite a lot of small, British, independent animation studios, especially the late 80s, early 90s. Yeah. Did you know they did Count Duckula? Did we say that last time? I did not know that.

No, so I don't think we did say that last time. There we go. They did Count Duckula. Excellent. I would say that's probably their biggest claim to fame, despite our love of Pratchett. But yeah, I do think I know you're not as big a fan of me, but I really like Bad 90s animation.

It is a shame they didn't do a couple more. I think some of the other books would have suited the treatment. Yeah, I kept going between really liking it and really not. And there's just a few things that kept pulling me out of it. And we'll go through those. But I like the idea of it. I've said before, I think fantasy is best done in animated form if you're going to make it visual.

Yeah. I generally like animation as a format. I'm a bit of an animation geek, and I really like it as a format for adaptation because you can do a lot more with a lot less, especially budget-wise, which brief tangent, but there's a new Lord of the Rings animated series coming out early next year called War of the Rohirrim. It's set about two, three hundred years before the events

of Lord of the Rings, and it's all about how helm's deep. Is it taken from the Somerian kind of thing? Or is it like completely? Taken from supplementary material and then expanded on. And that's being made by New Line Cinema, who made the Lord of the Rings films. There's a lot of the same like script supervisors and producers as opposed to the new Amazon Lord of the Rings live action series,

which is coming out, which has nothing to do with New Line. Oh, yeah, Amazon are doing series. I can't remember what it's called, but it's in their second age. It's about like the history of Sauron and stuff. So I want to be skeptical, but I'm immediately kind of excited by that idea. Anticipate a lot of people both hating that I'm assuming they've cast black people. So I'm assuming people are going to hate that because people are terrible

and everyone weirdly fanciing Sauron because I'm just assuming they're probably going to make Sauron hot. Yeah, people are very into like unforgivable villains right now, aren't they? I'm seeing a lot of Hannibal Love on Tumblr. I shouldn't have I shouldn't have joined Tumblr, Joanna. It's not it's not been good for me. I say that actually, it makes me a lot less cross than Twitter does.

So Tumblr is not rage inducing. It just will just like, oh, just generally keep keep pushing your brain to a place. I saw a Tumblr post about I saw one on Reddit that was loosely linked to my little pony and it led to me learning the definition of a slang term I didn't need to learn. I'm not going to ask. No, we might have younger listeners, so I'm not going to answer. Anyway, sorry. So you watched Terry Patrick gave an interview about the animated song music,

which I watched and I didn't. Yeah, I've linked it in the show notes. It's just a half hour thing, which I didn't send to Joe until like an hour before the show, which is much it popped up on my feed after I definitely didn't watch some music on YouTube. And I tried to watch it on DVD. Yeah, it was it was an interview in 97. So it was just before this came out, I think.

Yeah. And yeah, there's just a few bits in there. So what you find quite interesting, just from this particular thing, perspective, it was interesting to know that he had quite a lot of involvement. Like he got sent tapes in the post of the various voice actors and like got to give feedback, but he tried to stay quite hands off. But he got to say things about like continuity and like, as he said, lay down the law about certain aspects of characters. And yeah, so he just said a few things.

He particularly liked about it. He absolutely loved the soundtrack. Like really loved it, really liked Christopher Lee, obviously, and Susan Clay's voices and just some little details that I didn't notice. He said like nostrils flaring. There was a couple of like base animation bits that apparently were particularly impressive on a low budget animation.

But more your kind of interesting thing. He said quite a lot on just adaptations in general from the author's point of view. Yeah. And how he put it was he writes the novels with like a movie in his head, which I thought was quite interesting because you said that's kind of how you read them. Yeah, I don't visualise so well. So it was quite, yeah, you are reading them as he wrote them, which is quite good to me. I enjoy that.

But basically, I think the main kind of point, his point on adaptations, really, was that I am a possible author, as he put it. But a man ought to know his limits. Why should I also be a mediocre script writer? Adapting is a precise art and, you know, I may have been nervous about letting people have control of my child, my discworld. But like I had to realise that the experts should really take over for this one. There was actually quite an interesting interview when we did Clamados on the Clacks.

Clamados. With God, I'm pretty sure his name is Mark Hall. And I should be familiar. Yes, Mark Hall, who wrote the script for this? He did a panel with Stephen Briggs on Adapting Discworld, and he hadn't originally gone to Cosgrove to do this. He was originally supposed to do another project. And then there was sort of a.

Because I think Mort was in some kind of weird production hell. Yes, he alluded to that in the interview. He said, like, there's some kind of movie that might be happening, probably will happen, but right now it's very complicated. The rights went to, I think they were Disney or Disney adjacent. And I think the straw that broke the camel's back was when they wanted to remove the death angle because it was too depressing. But anyway, so Mark was, he was quite interesting talking about it,

because he hadn't read a lot of Discworld. He had read Mort and I think Reaper Man and Red Soul music and did the adaptation of this. So we've read the death books. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. You got the character. Yeah. So he had all of that prior context. But I think you can kind of see a there are things. There's some interesting stuff about how the story gets streamlined down

and what's considered important and what isn't. Yeah, it uses the characters of Mort and Isabelle a bit more. Father. Father. That's going to be our new sound check. Yeah. Father. It's like Marco Polo. Father. But then it sort of makes less of some of the side characters,

because obviously without the context, the other books like Colin and Nob's aren't anywhere near as important. Yeah. And there was something else from his interview I'll talk about when we get to my thoughts on that particular joke. But before that, let's talk about characters and casting. OK, first, I want to say one more thing from the interview, because it was a little anecdote I hadn't heard before and it's not related

to anything, but I don't want to accidentally forget it. He was practically talking about his fans and like the scope of them and where in the world they are. And he said that reasonably recently, so this is in the 90s, there was a thief who broke into a bookshop in Sweden who took the contents of the till and one of each of all the Terry Prouchett's books. Which he found quite flattering. But he said if he'd been a true fan,

he would have left the contents of the till and taken two of each full of his books. I have some respect for that. These yeah, anyway, sorry, characters, characters and casting. Well, let's start with the obvious one. Let's talk about death. Let's talk about death. Christopher Lee is obviously amazing casting. The only acceptable death, which is a shame because he's dead.

Well, I mean, a pope's. OK, really the coolest motherfucker to ever motherfucker. That doesn't work. No, literally, the most badass person I can think of, though. Like I'm pretty sure we went into his history in the last time we talked about it, but he was a spy. He was an actor. He was Dracula.

He was the inspiration for James Bond. Yeah, he knows what being stabbed sounds like. And very famous anecdote. Yes. Yeah. No, reading his like career history is just absurd because it feels like you're reading three different peoples in a row. And he's like, wow, he just he just kept going. Yeah, he did a heavy metal concept album about Charlemagne.

Yeah, yeah, that's like the last act. And a heavy metal Christmas album. Oh, yeah. Which is OK, it's not my favourite. I'm not a big heavy metal fan. I mean, you know, but, you know, we've got to respect the man. I absolutely respect Christopher Lee's choice to make a Charlemagne concept album.

But more importantly for this, he does do a fantastically gravitas filled, sonorous death voice coffin lid slamming. The only criticism I've really got, really, I know I did have this to talk about later on as well. One of the downfalls of animation is that death loses a lot of gravitas just by virtue of being like a cartoon skeleton, isn't not funny. Yeah, yeah, I think the only way around that would have been to make him

like as it expressionless as a skull would be. And that's just that's asking a lot from an animation of that style. I think it would have worked better if he was more expression if he just didn't have the active eyebrows. Yeah, yeah, maybe so, yeah. That's that's what I would have done, which interesting point on the animation, actually. I know we talked about this with Weird Sisters, they've got the like

for its time, very impressive 3D animation of the turtle. And then the rest is comparatively low budget 2D animation. Jack says it looks like it was done in flash. I don't know whether that would have been the case in the. I have no idea. I know it was to do with a huge budget constraint, but they had enough budget to do one bit of really cool 3D animation and then went, fuck, we've got no money.

And that was the context for Weird Sisters as well. It's like, we can do this one really cool thing and then, OK, with skin. Get your pen and paper out, lads. Yeah, it's quite difficult. Yeah, it's quite difficult to watch for this rate. Like it's one of the things that kept taking me out. It's just it's not even just the low budget of it. It's that it's it's all the uniform line weight.

It's all yeah, I very odd. It's like it's like something I would try and do. Like I wouldn't do it as well as that, obviously, but that's kind of how I would start out to try and make an animation. And that seems wrong. I kind of preferred it with Weird Sisters, because I think it fit better and be with Weird Sisters. There was an element of it being a bit more stylized

and it worked with the witchiness and they have the little details like Margaret's fingers going pointy when she was having a witchy rant. And I don't think it worked quite as well here. Yeah, it did. So that was that was my main death thought, to be honest. Season season played by Deborah Gillard, who are trying to look up what some of these actors had also done in Deborah Gillard's case.

She's obviously done many things as lots of these actors have, although some of them there's not a lot of info on the internet. That's all right. It's not like that interesting if they're not big, is it? No, but Deborah Gillard for Doctor Who fans watching, if you remember the episode, The Idiot's Lantern, which is the Queen's coronation when TV's start eating people. David Tennant era.

I must have said it then. It's David Tennant and Billy Piper. So yes, you would have done. Yeah. Oh, wait, no, I remember it. Yes. Deborah Gillard played Rita Connolly, the sort of long suffering wife in that episode. So I tried to find fun little links when possible. Yeah, I thought she did a good job with the voice acting.

I didn't appreciate some of the. Things that. But I think there were artistic choices, just like the overly dramatic nose and things like that. I think they generally need a lot more. They I don't really love what they did with her character. I think they find stupid. Yeah, she's insipid and she's giggly.

And then it's again, it's the animation thing. When you lose the internal monologue, you've got to be more expositional. And sometimes that means making a character stupid. She says weird, wiggly sperm brows. Oh, yeah, I really hated the eyebrows. I liked the aesthetic when she transforms herself. I liked the dress like I would wear that.

Yeah, that's fine. There was a barely noticed it, which means it must be fine. There wasn't the say it wasn't bodicey. No, no, that was going to be a bit of a weird line to try it. If you know, it's one thing saying, oh, a 16 year old made herself a little body stress. It's another drawing a 16 year old in a body stress. I think they made the right call.

Yes, no, I'm glad it wasn't creepy. Yeah. So then we have in in P. Kellen in P. Kellen, which we were mispronouncing when we talked about the book. Where we? Well, yeah, it's I was saying in P. Kellen in the book. Oh, OK.

I don't speak Welsh. His voice by Andy Hockley, who you may remember, was the grown up Tom John in the Weird Sisters animation. OK. And I really liked his aesthetic that he's got the kind of yeah, with but I think just the curly hair and everything, it kind of made it. Work across all the different

outfits and things they were putting him in. Yeah, no, I think they did a good job designing. Yeah, they didn't just do like a cartoon Elvis. I thought about it. Yeah, for sure. We have glad. Glad was voiced by Rob Rackstraw, who, again, was also in Weird Sisters.

He was Duke Felmut. OK. Yeah, it was a very over the top accent, then. God, it really was. It was he was meant to say that I was sure whether it's his or not. No, I don't think it was his. I was going to say one of the things I quite like about both of the things is that there's quite a lot of accent variation because I like the accents

all over the shop. Yeah, because, like, especially in the in the 90s, like the done thing was to have everyone speak in RP. Yeah. Now, I'm glad it's a lot more regional accents than that. Yeah. It's also apologies if I misname any of the regional accents. I'm really good at naming. I'm really bad at naming British regional accents.

Well, I can tell you that the punk band for Black Country. Yeah, that bit, that one I knew. Yeah. Black Country, I can just about get. I can usually spot scouts and I know Geordie because it goes straight to a part of my brain, I wish it didn't. And then I start sounding Geordie and no one needs that. Yeah, I think we've covered all of the strong ones we had anyway, so we should be OK.

I think we're safe. We've got Liars, voiced by George Harris. I kind of like, yes, Liars slash Cliff. I quite like that they did the American thing with him. Yes, I think that made sense for him. Yeah. Yeah. And I like that they made him better spoken and didn't have him do me big, dumb troll.

Yeah, again, it's one of those things that's in text. It's quite funny, but in cartoon, it would have been like a bit. It would have been a bit and it would have been crinchy and it would have dragged and it would have. Yeah. Yeah, especially if he speaks quite a lot. I liked the kind of stone sound effects they put when he moved. Yeah, I thought that was really nice little detail. Yeah. I didn't.

It doesn't really matter, I suppose. But I was like, why did they make him eat like worms and stuff instead of rocks, I guess? So it's just I think that was easier, yeah. But George Harris, he voiced him. Listers might recognise Kinkley Shackleball in the Harry Potter films. So not actually American. He was also in the very good neverware radio play.

He was the Abbott. Oh, OK. Which I highly recommend. Yeah, he did a good job with the American accent. I wouldn't have recognized the. I was quite surprised when I saw it was Kingsley Shackleball, because, yeah, I would have, I wouldn't have noticed. Rid Cully, I really enjoyed what they did with Rid Cully. He was voiced by Graham Crowden.

Yeah, I think they did a good job with him. Again, a little bit much with the Gherning and the overlay dramatics. But, you know, that's that's me just not getting along with this type of. Yeah, that's I think my problem. My least favourite Rid Cully moment was Susan hugging him when he was at. That was weird, weird. It's like, thank you, no, thank you. So you talk for like two minutes over breakfast

and then went and did your own things. It was odd. I wasn't sure I liked it. Graham Crowden, who voiced him very good, old English character. I basically assume every English actor in this, apart from, I think, Christavilly has been in casualty or heartbeat or the bill. Yeah, yeah, we have three English actors and they're just very tame. He was also nearly the fourth doctor before and turned it down, so Tom Baker did it instead.

And he did end up appearing in an old episode of Doctor Who from that, the time era. He turned it down. What a shame. Just imagine we wouldn't have had that voice. But I did think it was perfect voice casting for Rid Cully. I didn't quite like the look, but the voice is exactly how I imagine Rid Cully speaking. Yeah, definitely. The rest of the wizards were a bit high pitched and.

Yeah, realists, weren't they? Again, the Dean's voice is funny. Yeah, I like animation and silliness a bit more than you, but even I was very much hitting a ball with some of the silly voices. Yeah, the thing is, I really liked how that like the opposite, maybe, of Rid Cully, I really liked how they did them like the I thought the Dean acting like a teenager was really sweet. I think they did a really good job with like the giggling wizards, acting like kids.

But the Dean's look was great. The high flavouring voices were a bit annoying. Yeah, the Dean's look was great and the bedroom was great with with the background details. Mr. Cleat, voiced by David Holt, another very good British character actor. I I don't know why they made him so angry and Scottish. I think they just needed to get an angry Scot in there. Yeah, that seems to be something that they wanted on the checklist. I don't know who's just I wasn't a fan of the socks.

The socks made my brain go Malvolio and there's literally no other link apart from the yellow stripes or kings being the Malvolio thing. I didn't like they made him like more of like an angry antagonistic villain. Yeah, rather than the classic stone not stone faced exactly. But you sort of the bureaucrat villain that practice like so much. Yeah, the expressionist bureaucrat. And I guess the angry Scottish man works better for an animation. You see, disagree.

I think it works better for the kind of humour they were going for. But I don't particularly like that. Yeah, no, I think, yeah, that's more what I mean. Yeah. The bureaucratic film would have been just as funny on screen. But for this and the tone they went with it, an angry Scot works better with stripy knee socks. Albert, what is yeah, voiced by Brian Pringle. Excellent name.

What did you think of Albert? So it's good. Yeah. I liked the aesthetic. I liked the really angry face. Yeah. No, I think they did a good job with it. I was very sad when he was lying in the street. I get a little heart string tug, like old men and difficulties is my. Oh, yes, I say.

Yeah. Whereas that doesn't really do it for me. Yeah, no, I don't know. That's just I've said this before, I think even on the podcast, just something. I clearly just feel that old men are particularly helpless for some reason. Old men and dogs. I can't I can't deal with them being abandoned. Very few things tug my heart strings on the basis that I don't have a heart.

Makes my feel. The music shop owner. I only really wanted to mention this because she's voiced by Razalee Skates. I can't find much else about what she's done. But did she not remind you of the grandmother in Courage the Cowardly Dog? I don't know what that is. Have you never watched Courage the Cowardly Dog? No, I don't know what that is.

OK, I am going to not write the second. Obviously, but I'm going to send you a picture. OK, so you're going to make me watch it because I'm not going to. No, no one should actually watch it. It's a weird eldritch horror from my childhood. Oh, it's a it's a it's a kid's cartoon, but it's like a cartoon network. You know, they made some weird shit. Yeah, they just makes a weird shit like that house of dream things.

Yeah, it's weird. It always really freaks me out, but I can still watch it. I couldn't find who voiced it, but I'm assuming it was James Hibbert, who is once again credited as additional voices as he was for Weird Sisters. Yeah, it's not how I imagined it, but I liked it. Yeah, no, I thought it was good. Yeah, for sure. It wasn't far off how I imagined it. I like this. I imagine him slightly more like Danny DeVito, but.

Oh, see, I don't. I imagined him taller and thinner. I very much picture him like someone who can literally squeeze out of a tiny crevice in a wall because he's more like money. Yes, that's yeah. As in how we picture rinse when not how rinse when was cast in the TV adaptation. Yeah, because they're not speaking in that name. Yes, we went to speak of that. Sorry. Anyway,

asphalt, I liked the visual squashed troll thing. It's very good. It's very good. I thought it was quite cute. I thought he was nice. Bernard Wrigley, who voices him is a very good folk musician. He's got like 12 or 13 albums. So that's a good name. Yeah, I had a quick listen to a couple of his songs and it's not bad.

Nice little bit of folk music. So I'll link to something of his on YouTube in the show notes. That. And then probably after Christopher Lee, the biggest name in this, in fact, possibly considered a bigger name at the time, considering he was sort of at the height of his what's it. More was voiced by Neil Morrissey. Oh, he was Tony in Men Behaving Badly.

Which was very popular at this point, inexplicably. I've never understood the appeal of that show. I don't think I've watched it. It's a bad British 90s sitcom. And I'm saying that as someone who really loves bad British 90s sitcoms. It's not a it's not one I'd highly recommend listeners may disagree. Answers on postcard. Yes, answers on a postcard.

But yes, but he was quite he was really quite well known at the time. Well, he did a job I don't really remember on more. So that's fine. I thought the more bit was quite good. Yeah, again, it was fine. I couldn't I could not tell you what his voice was like. It was that which means it was fine. Isabel.

Yeah, but very annoying. Can't be doing without was. Yeah, they made so much of her shouting father as the coach goes over the cliff. I guess if I'd just watched one of that a week, it would have been a bit less. Yeah, but the fact it opened every previously on. Yeah. It got really annoying really quickly.

Melissa Sinden, who voiced her, also provided some voice work in Weird Sisters. Although I couldn't see specific name. So I think she was. Random village women number four, five and six. Yeah. But yeah, no, especially because obviously we're seeing the coach seeing from a different perspective than how we see it in the book. We never see more than Isabel's reaction to dying in a coach crash in the in the book.

Yeah. I don't think that's how Isabel would have reacted. Well, maybe in the last seconds. I don't think she I think she would have screamed. I don't think she would have found her father. Yeah, because that sort of has some weird implication of her somehow blaming him or something. I don't know. I thought it was more like asking for help.

Yeah, I suppose. But, you know, death talks about the fact I guess more of this is made in the book that they had accepted that they only had a certain amount of time. Yeah. But again, like I always feel like when people are looking at media of people who are about to die, they expect all of their normal character traits to apply. And I just don't think that's the case. I feel like someone on the edge of death is going to panic and do anything they can stay alive. That is just human nature.

OK, yeah. I probably wouldn't have stuck with me the wrong way if it hadn't been repeated so much. Exactly. I think it's less it is less that she reacts like that and more that so much is made of that reaction. Yes, all right. Yeah. And it's put in every. Yeah, no, that. Yeah. Make it a keystone point is a bit much.

Yeah. And then the only other thing I want to talk about is that I really, really fucking love the Valkyries. Yeah, they were how you wanted, were they? They were exactly how I pictured them. I like that they they used Ride of the Valkyries in that section. I know, obviously, Wagner, a bit problematic. Is he? Did I not tell you we cancelled Wagner?

No, he was like a bit Nazi. He was a Nazi, wasn't he? Yeah, I don't know. But I always fuck me. I don't give it. I should not give a shit if they play Ride of the Valkyries. I'm sorry. Oh, no, no, you've made you've caught me on the wrong day. I am not seriously saying we should.

Ride of the Valkyries and things because Valkyrie was a Nazi. That was a joke. And everyone's tell you Valk's wagons. No, but it I really like that piece mostly because of a Looney Tunes cutting. Oh, yeah. There's it's not what's up, Pradoq. I get this wrong a lot. What's up, Pradoq is the one where they do Baba of Seville,

but there is a Looney Tunes episode where they do a pistachio run of the Valkyries and it's killed the rabbit. Killed. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've all got that on a stupid playlist somewhere. I just really love Looney Tunes. Yeah, it's very good. Very good. Cool. All right. So you've got a lost in translation section.

Bits, I feel like kind of don't work when translated to a cartoon or translated screen at all. One thing I've mentioned already, especially with Susan is the loss of internal monologues. And I think Susan gets hit the hardest with this. Yeah, because we don't have her internal monologue. She kind of becomes that character that in the book she hates. She's just one dimensional being dragged along by events.

Exactly. And giggling. Like the bit where the fucking Dickhead Raven needs to point out the whole she can go back in time thing to her rather than her working that out for herself. Yeah, well, so like Susan adjacent, I don't know why they had to make the other girls Dickheads the mean to each other. They can't be friends. They've got to be bitches.

Like I get that they reduced the characters down and didn't have her scenes with Yeah, I'm Thogs daughter and I can't remember the trolls name. OK, thank you. But yeah, they just they didn't need to make it bitchy. And yeah, things like people noticing when she goes invisible. It seems like they started something there. It's like, oh, we need to make her like bullied or something,

but they didn't do anything like with that. It wasn't for her character. Yeah, it would have because girls aren't nice to each other. I guess. Yeah, which like even as someone who was bullied at school, like girls aren't that bitchy. And yeah, I mean, they can be. But there's no need to make a group of friends into bitches just because that's how you portray girls.

Exactly. And I think also a with just the third person view of it, there's a lot more implied about her feelings for buddy, which I didn't like, like in the book, it's 50 50. Like obviously, yes, I find them attractive and whatever in a very teenage girl way. But it's also I want to fix what's going on because I don't like it. Her motive was justice a lot more than it was fancy and buddy.

Yeah. And it makes it somewhat seem like her motives are more towards fancy and buddy. Well, especially is it's especially odd because they have that scene where they talk and like they didn't put any chemistry in. Yeah, no, it's had a two minute argument. And then that was that. I think they were kind of trying to do some of the more on Isabel,

you know, they argue until they admit they actually fancy each other. But it it didn't work, because they went around each other enough. That worked with Morton Isabel, because Morton Isabel were constantly in company. It was annoying. I also think her whole dealing with the loss of her parents thing is they make it much bigger and more emotional. In the book, when she says I could go back and save them,

it's very much she already knows the answer is no, but she feels like she has to ask to keep herself human. Yeah. Whereas in this, it's very sincere when she says that she's a lot more emotional in that scene, and that didn't work for me. I'm guessing they put the emotion in that scene because they weren't going to put the end bit in because it was quite necessary for the fact she was still human, that in the book, she had the crying in bed.

Finally, the emotions catch up with her moment. Yeah, I think just a lot of the emotional impact got replaced in. Was replaced by. High drama. Yeah. Father. Yeah. Father, the new bit, which I hate in anything. Yeah. Yeah. No one ever has said that. Oh, if they have, then they deserve what was happening.

That's me. I'm very tired. I'm sorry. Me too. I'm saying this is someone who's jumped off cliffs. I've never gone. No. I mean, I was generally intentionally jumping off cliffs and attached to a harness. Yeah. But still, I'm saying this is someone who has dropped a fully iced, perfect cake on the floor. Yeah, I did not go. No, I swore very loudly.

Yeah. And then threw a cake board out the window. Enough about my work tantrums. I think the other thing that gets lost with the loss of sort of internal monologue is death's transface sort of transformation into misdescribe and then back to being death again. And as I talked about, like I said, death, like a cartoon skeleton, it's just it's funny, which made death less serious, even with Christopher Lee voicing him.

But sort of along the same line, characters like fellow Ron and also, especially Nobby, like those characters don't work on screen. The point is that they're kind of almost more horrific than you can imagine. Yeah, it's like a character version of that trope where it's a story they never tell you the answer to. It's like they they refer to something that happened and never tell you what it was kind of things, but yeah, in people form.

Yeah. Yeah. I also didn't like Nobby's stupid laugh. That was a stupid detail to add in. Yeah, that was a no. I don't know. Oh, God, I feel like such a dick because reviewing this kind of thing, like it it feels so pointless because I just don't like this kind of thing. And I'm just going to sit here saying I don't like this kind of thing

for over an hour, like and people who like this kind of thing will like it and will not benefit from me telling them it's shit for an hour. So I'm sorry, guys, like it's fine. I'm going to go on to things I liked about it because I said I like this medium a lot more than you do. The only other thing I think really gets lost in translation is the problem you have without adapting any disqual book, whether it's to animation, to screen, to a radio play, is that you don't have

the world building suffers because you don't have the background context and you can't always provide the background context. Especially with this, obviously, that it assumes that the viewer has not read Mort. So it has to make a lot more of the drama of Mort, which it does. I don't think that's a really positive, but also just little things that you don't have the context of the street of Cunning Artifices, and it's fine.

You don't need it because many people are watching this. It's made with the assumption people are watching it as a one off. But that's a detail I like is that Aunt Mort has the street of incredibly clever people. Yeah. So little details like that, I think, kind of get lost in the adaptation of it. Yes, but then that kind of takes me on to things I think that worked, things that didn't.

And I think one of the things that really does work is because it's a visual medium, you can put loads of tiny little background details in. And I think some of the background details are great. Like you start noticing as the band get more popular, there's graffiti of like the band names and the band with rocks and graffiti just appearing more and more in the cities. And I thought that was a really nice detail. Sure, would like the backgrounds and things because the.

Technical. The technical barriers on there, I guess, like I did like the backgrounds. I thought they were pretty cool. I liked the band posters. Yeah, I thought the band posters were great. Oh, I mean, I like static background, zoom in and out things like, yeah. I like things like this because you have these really detailed static backgrounds that you're animating on top of.

You can't put loads of detail into them. And generally, they're kind of quite stunning pieces of art in their own way. Right. Not just with this, but like the old Lord of the Rings original animated series, if you ever get hold of a single cell for that, some of the detail, the painted detail in those static backgrounds is stunning. So that's what I want them to finish. I don't want them to make a whole new one. Will someone just finish that fucking Lord of the Rings animation?

Yes, but make it the length of the extended editions. No, fuck. But yeah, so I like I like the background details. And more pork also has the welcomes, careful barbarian sign. And just you can put little things like that in from the books. A lot better in a medium like this. Yeah, yeah. So I do think that works. And some of the other benefits of animation.

The visual, some of the visual effects around the music. I know it got cheesy, especially when it was all rainbows. But things like Buddy in Kamados to Claring, he's going to be the greatest musician in the world. Yes, the visual. Showing of the music, obviously, worked well to explain something that was quite difficult to explain in text. Yeah, it's one of those details where, you know, a page of writing

becomes an instant on screen. And I think it works well. The visual effects of Albert crossing the floor of death study. That was well done. Yeah. That the perspective of it, I thought was great. And Albert very confidently, you see him step in and then you cut to a close of death and you see Albert walk up straight away. Yeah. And the sound of the footsteps continues.

Yeah, which means you get the effect of him crossing that space that looks like you could not cross it in that time. And then paralleling it with when Susan goes in there for the first time, she freaks out and can't get across the room as comfortably because she's not used to it. Yeah. And some of the dream sequence stuff, it was again, it was a bit cheesy. But when you sort of have the flashbacks to her on the swing as a child. Yeah, that's cute. Yeah.

I thought that worked and also establishing, you know, the deep her birthmark. Again, it's something that takes a page to describe and you've sort of got to remember the thing from Morton in this. It's just something that appears on her face and that's done. Yeah. I thought they overused that as a replacement for giving her actual expressions. But yeah. Yeah, OK, there is that. She was weirdly expressionist.

And Buddy, as well as the music starts to take you over, just the fact that once they play that first gig in more book, he's just kind of constantly moving a little bit. It looks like he has ADHD. Yeah, I can't say that. You can. Yeah, you can't see my hands underneath the view I have on the webcam, and that's on purpose. But I think that works.

I think putting that detail into his character of the music is taking him over and say he is constantly, unless he's asleep. Yeah, reacting to the music around him in some way. I thought that really worked. Admittedly, the big finale lost in music scene was just cheesy as fuck. Like for me, that was much cheesier than the Buddy declaration at the beginning. I wasn't really sure where to put this, but what the fuck? What was that ending?

Oh, that wasn't it. That was they just I don't understand why they just changed it. Yeah, I think why did death do a fucking shit little solo and then smash the guitar? I think the visual spectacle and the drama and yeah, I got it. Come in and save the day. I get it. It's just I think that's easy for me. So I think I could have tried harder with that ending. That was I think it's it's time.

The pacing was all very weird. It took so long for the band to get going in the first few I think that's it. I think they could have given it more room to breathe by shifting the events. Yeah. And then done the ending from the book. And also, like, it would have been too much effort to put in. I get it. But I am kind of sad you lose the chip shop joke by turning Buddy because that's the whole point of it.

Yes, it's the Elvis and Elvis thing, but the whole point of it is that you can make that joke at the end. Yes, listeners. Also, I know it was Kirsty McColl, not Kate Bush, just in case anyone didn't read the show notes from last week. I'm not ashamed of not knowing that, but Joanna doesn't like being wrong. Only one person has actually tweeted me and Toby off so far and I can respect it. Kirsty McColl is a bit underrated, so I feel a bit bad for not giving her her fair

due there. I don't mind giving Kate Bush credit for random shit that's fine. I hear Kate Bush actually directed this, I know. Do you know Kate Bush actually invented McAfee anti-virus software? All right. OK, yeah, no, let's not go into James McAfee. No, you were texting the group chat midnight about conspiracy theories. I'm tired for no good reason. Yeah, you're tired because we were texting about conspiracy theories at midnight.

Then I drew a rocket ship. When you should have been asleep. It's a nice rocket ship. Well, no, because I wouldn't have been asleep when I've been lying there, thinking about all the horrible news I just read. Yes, this is why we don't open the BBC News app past 10 o'clock. Anyway, sorry, we're talking about the animated series Soul Music from 1998. And not the mysterious death of Tech Weirdo James McAfee.

God, we're not going to, obviously, we've got too much to do, but I just want to do a weird true trot crime, deep dive into how fucking batshit his life was. I mean, you can make a different podcast about that. I think I'm not going to. But like, I read one article and landed very quickly in what the fuck. And right, we are talking about. The animated series up as I stopped talking about this and smiling again. All right, let's talk about this story streamlining.

Actually, yeah, I'll talk about the ending takes us fairly neatly to this. There were cuts I like and cuts I didn't. I get that when you adapt something, cuts always have to be made. A, some things don't work as a visual medium and B, you have only got so much time. I thought I thought they were very good with the cuts, actually. I thought they did not unnecessarily hack bits out or no, I think they really streamlined getting Susan from the school to death's domain.

Yeah, that would have been really annoying to watch. The whole disbelieving sequences are difficult enough in books. And I just hate them on TV and films like stop wasting screen time. So yeah, I agree with that cut. That was good. Cool. And Albert knowing someone needs to be found to do the duty. Albert being a lot more proactive. Exactly. Yeah.

All that the hesitation scenes weren't necessary. And I'm glad we came to that conclusion. Yeah, there are some of the little moments like I get why they were cut, but I miss them like the piano stealing scene. I would have liked to see Distritis and see like a silly animated version of them being the talking piano. Yeah, I thought that would have been funny. And God finding the librarian and the librarian

beating up some students on the way and that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. Diabla's the sort of Diabla's subplot of his, him finding out what Rick Cully is doing and planning to record the music getting cut. I get I get why that was cut. But yeah, I think that would have added an extra layer of it. But yeah, buddy becoming a gardener at the end. I didn't like I wanted the I see why.

Obviously, it's a bit of an effort to put them in the fish shop as well. But I also see why because it was a standalone wrap up thing, they wanted to give the little wink at the end like those two crazy kids are going to get together, whereas obviously, like in the books, they didn't need to imply that. Yeah, but yeah. Something I did like, although the father got annoying, was the hourglass previously on.

I like the visual effect of the scenes coming through the hourglass. Yeah, I made a note about that actually. This is probably something you'll know more about than I do, even though I write the previously on for this. I've always been very impressed and this is no exception by shows that do a good job of these previously on sequences. Yeah, managing to sum up an entire and often quite long plots in these little clips so that you can.

Well, if you've watched it all, you can easily now remember and the cues are correct. But even if you haven't watched it all, you can kind of get vague idea of what's going on. Yeah, just by these previously on. So I've always been, yeah, I've always been really impressed by whoever does those. I am impressed by some of them. Sometimes one of my big bug pairs, although I understand why it happens

is when and Buffy is one that really does this and Angel as well, lost to a certain extent to is when an episode is going to address something that was like three seasons ago. Sure. So they put scenes from that into the previously on. And it's kind of like, as soon as you watch the previously on, oh, well, I know they're going to bring this character back for this episode. Yeah, and you can kind of see both sides on that, can't you? Yeah, like I get.

So to use Buffy as an example, a really recent episode I watched they bring back a character who left in the previous season in quite an emotional way. Sure. And then in the previously on, they have that scene where he leaves, which means when he shows up in the episode, it's not a surprise. And OK, so it's there's five minutes between the previously on and then him showing up in the episode. But I think it would have been better to not have that and go,

ah, what the fuck? It's Riley. Yeah. Whether a viewer of Buffy would be happy to see Riley or not, it's another matter. I see. But yeah, so that's a weird bugbear of mine. But I think that's because I know when I watch shows, I very rarely forget what's happened previously. It's much easier.

But yeah, but I like the hourglass visual. Yeah. Yeah. Although sorry. The previously on felt very long, considering each episode is only 25 minutes long. And again, I binged it, whereas this would have been airing weekly. But I just I don't think you needed to sum up the entire plot of the previous episode in each previously on.

Plus, throwing the gratuitous father. Yeah. Oh, I didn't have a problem with it oddly enough. So yeah. I think it was because I was I was only paying attention to some of it, so it was quite useful. And then obviously kind of the big thing as it was somewhat the big thing with the book is the music and references stuff. Yeah.

I mean, overall, I thought the music works really well. It's like it's very good music in its own right. They didn't do obviously they couldn't. They wouldn't have had the budget to get the rights to all the songs that the book is kind of talking about parodying. But I think they did a very good job making it obvious which style it was. And it doesn't have the same like bam, bam, bam, joke, joke, joke reference pace of the book.

But I think that would have got tedious a lot faster on screen. So I'm kind of OK with that. Yeah, sure. And yeah, I mean, were there any references in this that were. There was a lot of fun stuff. The first gig as the music takes over and Buddy immediately becomes kind of Elvis-ish and they make the shoes blue. And I also quite like that he automatically goes into kind of performance

dance, because that's a thing I always sort of like about, you know, you see someone who's sauntering onto a stage and not and you suddenly see them stand on a microphone and suddenly go. Yes. And I don't just mean sticking to it. I like that, although we didn't get all of the ridiculous band names, we did get one with the socks pastels. Yeah, which was the supporting act.

What's that? Sex pistols. Oh, thank you. Which to be honest, I can hear much difference between their terrible music and the sex pistols, but then I don't really like the sex pistols. Oh, revelation. You know, no, I guess you're not very punk. I had my little punk rebel phase and was really into the sex pistols as a teenager and was really obsessed with Sid Vicious and the Sid and Nancy movie.

And then I grew up and like the sex pistols grew up to be Brexity and. Are they? Yeah, John Lydon is like at least one of them. Tory Brexity or left wing Brexity, like Tory Brexity. Yeah, they they change, man. Yeah, that's a shame. But I also think I just kind of outgrew my sex pistols phase. All right, well, I didn't so screw you.

Look, I might be wearing a leather tie, but I'm not very punk. I was a filthy. How did you outgrow your punk phase and not your emo phase? That doesn't work. Because I'm too tired to be a punk, but I have got the energy to be very sad about everything. Got it. Got it. Also, side fringe looks better on me than shaved head. Disagree, but OK.

I'm not. I like the side fringe, but I also really like your shaved head. I do kind of miss the shaved head. Anyway, don't tell me to shave my head again. I it was fucking horrifically cheesy, but the little scene with Rid Cully, where the the breakfast scene with the burger and the it's my Patti Elfry, if I want to, and all the girls singing and having the beehives and the girls singing made me angry. The actual sound of it was horrible.

I turned the volume right down, but I did like the visual effect and the fact that they were bursting into song, because that's something I don't think worked quite as well in the book. I thought it looked quite pretty when they have the outfits and stuff. I did it. Yeah, I did it. Just that I'm very sensitive to terrible noises. That's fair. That's fair. And then the aesthetic they get, especially as they go on tour.

I like the Sudopolis Blues Brothers look. Yes, that was very cool. But then the aesthetic that starts in Ang Moorpork and goes with the Montaugh is the Beatles thing. Yes. The early eras. Yes, you get the short guitars. I think part of the reason it leans into the Beatles thing so hard is you've obviously got when they're in querm,

they're doing the very flower power, 60s Beatles look. Then they make the bigger than cheeses joke. Which I fucking hate. Did you? Why? It's the pun thing in that they deliberately lean so much into the Beatles aesthetic to work with that one line. Do you think they did? I mean, if you talk, they did Beatles through the ages

aesthetically, even when the music didn't make sense. Like Stolat, they've got the Lonely Hearts Club aesthetic, but the music they're doing is like Hendricks. Sure. I just rubbed me up the wrong way. I think, I don't know. I just think there's there's more they could have played with if they were going to do references to different music eras in the aesthetics.

Yeah, fair enough. Then just leaning into Beatles and saying that I still like all the music. The bigger than Jesus joke is funny. It just more popular than Jesus. OK. The only reason I know that reference to John Lennon saying it at all is because of one of my favourite early Simpsons episodes when Homer forms a barbershop quartet in the flashback

and when he's telling the story to his kids and they and then he says, oh, it started to all go wrong. And they said, oh, you didn't do something stupid like saying you're bigger than Jesus. And he said, oh, yeah, we named our album that that wasn't a problem. Yeah. And I had no idea like that that was a reference. And my dad had to explain to me that was a reference to the Beatles and this huge uproar.

Yeah. So I didn't get that explained to me when I watched The Simpsons, but it was just something I learned later because I liked the Beatles very much. Yes, I never massively got into the Beatles, to be fair. Obviously, I like I don't dislike the Beatles because saying that would be ridiculous. And I like the songs I've heard. I've just never got like into the Beatles. I was very into 60s music as a teenager. Oh, yeah, you had the whole kind of hippy vibes, didn't you?

I did think the heartpiece was beautiful, beautifully done, though. Yeah, it was very nice, isn't it? Very nice. Sorry, I hate using that as a descriptor. Yes, it was beautiful. I thought it was lovely. And I'm glad they didn't try and give it lyrics. Yes, I agreed. And they just made it a really lovely piece of music

and you got to see everyone react to it. I think if they'd done lyrics, it would have to be some Welsh language folk thing. Yeah, which I imagine is a bit difficult to make an original of. Yes. And I'm glad all the music was original. I think it works. I think all of the music with rocks in music and the originality of it, the fact that it was all imitations of styles and not covers.

Yeah, works really well. I thought the incidental music was really annoying. Like, like all of the, you know, music has someone screaming across rooftops and the background music school. Yeah, sorry, that's the word I meant. I didn't register with me. I've started trying to pay more attention to scores because I happened to be watching some stuff with some good scoring at the moment.

Yeah, I don't know. It seemed to lean into the fantasy-ish aspect a lot more. And it didn't need to. Yeah, OK, I didn't gel with the rock and roll. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, no, I literally didn't notice any of that. All right, fair enough. And I don't think I've really got anything more to say about it.

Like, overall, I did enjoy it. I don't think I'd want to watch it on repeat over and over again. But I don't think it was a bad adaptation. It wasn't a bad adaptation. That's the thing. That's why I feel like such a dick, I'd come up in here because it was good. It was a good adaptation. The voice actors were mainly good.

And the the background animation was beautiful. The tricks they did, the cuts they did was very good. It's just I fucking hate stupid voices comedy. I hate it. It really makes me cross. See, I think that's what we've got to say. Do you have anything else to say? Do you have any other burning thoughts or opinions? Russell Russell Foley.

I liked egg death. OK. The the the right of ash can't. Oh, yes. The egg turned into a little death face. I enjoyed that. I liked that Dibla had a sausage as a cigar. Yeah.

And I thought that when they were in the Musicians Guild and the dude said, are you locked together? And there was that weird moment of awkward silence. It seemed like it was about to start a fanfic sex scene. No, it's my only observations. I didn't manage to get in the main episode. OK, well, we're all very glad that there was no weird fanfic sex scene. Am I not wrong? Am I wrong?

No, that was like that was like like we were having a couple of times in the series. There was just like a beat of silence at a weird place. I was like, is that on purpose? Imagine. What are you implying? I can't. Imagine if like a soul music adaptation, like not a crappy 90s animated one, but like any other kind of adaptation came out now in the year of our Lord 2021.

Just imagine the shipping francing. Imagine the shipping. God, I would have to leave Tumblr for a little while. Yeah, not to yuck people's yums. Obviously, being to what you're into is just we're not into it. Don't enjoy things, please, listeners. I think I've established right from the beginning of this podcast that I am here to yuck people's yums.

How did we end up with me being the nice one, France? You know, I hate everything because you know, if you allow yourself to come down to my energy level, the podcast will just stop. I can't. We should probably address the schedule for the listeners. So we already mentioned in our bonus episode back in May that we have published a schedule for the year.

It is slightly changed. You listeners may be aware that the Watch TV series is finally being released in the UK as of July the 1st. We know we said we are we were going to cover the whole series and we are at some point, but we don't want to massively adjust our schedule for the year and we'd like to keep us on holidays. So we will be doing a bonus episode

sort of on the whole reaction. We just watched it type thing somewhere probably around the end of July. We haven't got a confirmed date yet. And then we'll be covering it in more detail next year, probably January, just because we want to give ourselves the time and not cram it in and have to move all the other books for this year. Yeah.

And we want to give everything the time it deserves. We are also another slight change to the schedule is that rather than the episodes for interesting time starting on the 5th of July, we are going to give ourselves a week off. And the first one will come out on the 12th of July. So the listeners also get a break from us for a week, which I think they deserve. I think they've I think they've suffered enough.

Obviously, if you are one of our patrons, still expect bonus nonsense from us. Next down the rabbit hole is coming at some point near the beginning of July. In the meantime, dear listener, you can follow us on Instagram, the true shall make you frat on Twitter, make you frat pod on Facebook at the true shall make you frat. You can join our subreddit community, our slash ttsmyf.

You can email us your thoughts, queries, castle snacks and Albatrossie pods, the true shall make you fret pod at gmail.com. If you would like to support us financially, you can go to patreon.com forward slash the true shall make you frat and exchange your hard or not so hard earned pennies for all sorts of bonus goodies and nonsense. If you could, please raise some reviewers, especially on Apple Podcast, because it helps other people find us.

Do tell other people about us. And in the meantime, dear listener. Don't let us detain you. Bum. Bum, bum, bum. We can do this, Francine. We've got this, and then I'm going to ice the shit cake.