We Hate Movies - S6: Animation Damnation #27 - Centurions

Episode Date: April 25, 2016

On this episode of Animation Damnation the gang talks about the insane toy commercial cartoon, Centurions! The episode in question, "Day of the Animals," raises concerns such as why cybernetic animals in the first place? Did they actually invent wi-fi enabled mind control? And what's with Ace McCloud, professional scum bag? PLUS: Successful Stan Lee endlessly taunting a troubled Jack Kirby.Unlock Exclusive Content!: http://www.patreon.com/wehatemovies See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So how much is this just an embarrassing G.I. Joe ripoff? more of a toy commercial I feel as fair I mean like in the sense that they're all toy commercials sure yeah this is a G.I. Joe rip off but this is like a show for boys and boys alone oh boys alone big time

white boys specifically are you white boys you're gonna love this Eric you actually referred to it as the the Chocobot hour which I mean that's yes it's probably the most accurate although this wasn't giving me seizures well because there are moments in this cartoon

where accessories attach themselves to bodies. Yeah. You're getting like the alternate versions of characters that you can buy. Yeah, that's a real put down these Mattel products. I mean, that's the whole point of the show is like the toy is the show. Like even more so than G.I. Joe, like G.I. Joe is a toy commercial wearing there'd be all these different characters. This one, which is even cheaper, you have three. And then you just give them different outfits to wear to get into different missions.

Therefore, and they also have like these pig holes that can attach for the things, which is exactly what a toy would do. My God, it's the cheapest, most obvious fucking commercial ever. This is animation damnation. I'm Andrew Juppin alongside Steven Sadek and Eric Sisko. We're talking about an embarrassing cartoon called Centurions, the episode in question, Day of the Animals. I think you mean Day of the Animals. Yeah, I do. We're gruff white men.

Oh, no, the animals. Originally aired November 26th, 1986. So I guess this was their Thanksgiving episode. It was what we're led to believe. Oh, man, there's some turkeys that came to life or whatever. So, real quick, this show. In the near future. It's three dudes.

Uh-huh. Three white dudes. Max Ray. That sounds familiar to me. Max Ray. Three white dudes. He's sea ops. Do they have a?

podcast. Not yet. Jake Rockwell, he's Land Ops, and Ace McLeod. He's naturally Air Ops. Okay. Now, that guy. Ace McLeod. Right. His brother is Connor McLeod of the Clan McLeod, Highlander. Yeah. And the other guy, what was his name, Rockwell? Jake Rockwell or Max Ray? Rockwell. Jay Rockwell. Now, his book. Jake. Jake. The hard K in there. Jake. That's right. Rockwell. His brother. is Norman Rockwell, the painter of American life back when America was great.

I couldn't get it. I didn't have Norman's fanciness with the arts, so I needed land vehicles with missiles on them. And the dog. I decided to paint with blood. Can I just say? The human body would be my canvas. God.

Fighting all sorts of shyborgs and dogs and whatever. Toy commercial aside. character design in this movie gets an F plus or cartoon I just wish there was a Centurian's movie I guess you would be both

no character design in this show gets an F plus because how is it that only one of these guys has a big bushy mustache that should be three by three mandatory

lip caterpillars Max Ray Tom Selleck had a fucking suit you know what I mean like yeah an 80s adaptation of this is a big movie with Tom Selleck, sign me up. It's the natural casting choice. Speaking of character design,

why does everyone have two necks? Because they have like, it's like, this is my human body and kind of next to it is my robot arms. It's really, it makes me uncomfortable. But yeah, they've got a head and a neck, and it looks like... When they get into their cyborg costumes.

Right. It looks like they need... Like, it's like there's like a neck. There's like a metal neck on this. metal arm and it's like a bigger shoulder. They look like they're meant to have two heads. Well, you're specifically talking about the two bad guys. Hacker

and Doc what? Doc Terror and his cyborg companion hacker. Oh, pardon me. They share a condo in Florida. So basically the centurions... This is my friend, hacker. The centurions are like a world peace organization

that live inside of his spaceship that orbits the world. Yes. And Jake has a dog. Crystal, does anyone know that I've been watching a lot of this cartoon? Steve, you watched this growing up. I did, yeah. That is unconscionable. I watched this for the first time an hour and a half ago.

They have a lady that does ops for them named Crystal who has a monkey that does nothing. A monkey who they draw it so that, because it's a lady monkey? Lucy. Lucy has a same sort of head hairstyle as Crystal. Because why not? Like a styling together? Hey, you better make that monkey look like her female

co-worker. Designer of Centurions. And Doctor is your Dr. Claw and he's a cyborg who looks like a pile of garbage. Looks like Ronald Reagan in the middle of like Superman 3 when that lady turns into a cyborg. But if it didn't, if it didn't

might take. It's like if Ronald Reagan fell in a bat of acid and they only kind of saved part of them like Robocop. Wait till they get a load of me, mommy. I'm Robo Ron. Yeah, dude. That's what it looks like. He would be called Doc Terror at that point. For sure. Yeah. Or actually, that's probably the closest you'd get to Emperor Reagan. Yeah. And then you got Yule Brenner who's hacker. And Yule Brenner as hacker. I'll live forever, Mommy. Oh, fucking terrified. Controlling the country, right?

Finally, Mommy, now we can take a firm stance and fight HIV AIDS. Just kidding. I'm going to sell weapons to death squads. We can arm the Taliban, Mommy. Finally, with my cyborg arm. Yul Brenner, get a hold of Hollywood. would. Make

Rambo be friends with Osama bin Laden. Man, that Rambo 3 is kind of weird looking back, isn't it? Uh-huh. Yikes. Yeah. Where do you think they learned it from? Rambo. Watching Rambo 3. Rambo showed up and taught them how

to hijack planes. If I can change, you can change. We can all change. Oh, wait. Wrong, Sylvester Stallone character. So in this episode, what a doctor always says crazy plans. this time, I guess, is turning animals into

cyborgs? It's a man's best friend situation. Yes. Minus the acid piss. This cartoon could use a little acid piss. Yeah, that is a stay tuned. Possibly for the 2016 spooktacular. That's a pretty scary movie. You got Lance Hendrickson. Of course, it's terrifying. Yeah, so the plan is he's going to, like, do this

operation on a dog. And the dog is going to be like a cyborg robot dog like man's best friend well of course you know this this companion hacker he botches the whole thing what a bumbler this knucklehead

but as Doc Terror points out this this dude's buffoonery is trumped by his genius because even though the operation goes wrong the dog

like this guy can control the dog's mind through this computer device but the dog somehow has the physical strength of a cyborg without having any machinery built into it. He's like biting through steel and I'm like that doesn't make sense like he glows pink which is

cartoon lingo for superpowers or hypnotized like brainwashed in your eyes. A little bit of both and now he's like biting through steel it's weird I guess it's like the dog was just permanently put on PCP is the idea and like when all of this wears off

like his teeth are going to fall out. He's just going to fall down dead. Yeah, yeah. You know, he'll fill the effects finally. Yeah, that sweet, sweet high, that invincibility high, man, that you just get with Angel Dust, baby. You're just on cloud 12. Yeah, man.

You're running through brick walls with that shit. Oh, me. Just ask Doc Terror. Doc Terror. God, it's terrible. Pips them up. That's an Ellis Island situation. Really?

It was Tara Winsky? Yeah. Dr. Terowitz, huh? How about terror? Now you're a supervillain. In another, that's Victor Von Doom. You're Dr. Doom now, pal. Yeah, that Ellis Island set that family up for evil. Wait, wait, Von Doom was his non-Hels? That's his Christian name, yeah.

That's not any different than Doom? Yeah. It means from Doom. Well, now he's not from Doom. He is Doom. And he's the doctor of it. The doctor is in there. Well, they're not giving them doctorates.

No, no, I'm pretty sure that they did. Really? You see Mighty Marvelites? You could get your doctorate in anything back in the day, including Doom. Just hot. Now just get onto a boat and disguise yourself as a Polack immigrant. And then say you're a doctor. And they'll make you a doctor.

Funny you should mention, Stanley. because this show was character designed by... It was Lewinsky, and he's now Stanley. Stanley's old enough to have gone through Alzheimer's. What's Stan the man? He's in his 90s now. He's in his 10090. There's a picture of him aging somewhere.

No, he... That picture must look okay. It's a different deal than Ashko... And then, uh, it's not the same picture. It's not the same picture deal that Paul Rudd has. I'll tell you that much. Recently celebrating his 47th birthday I just saw. Holy fuck.

Could have fooled me. Paul Rudd was my high school roommate. Paul Rudd and I fought W-W2. Shut up. High school roommate. It was so old they went to an old boarding school, a separate piece style high school. Makes total sense. Makes total sense.

We were in the service together after that. Jack Kirby, because he was shafted from Marvel and Stan was reaping all the benefits for all the characters they both created, had to turn to cartoon work such like the Centurion. Oh, no. Yeah, this is like a 60-year-old, like, Jack Kirby on Social Security making the fucking Centurians while Stan is count fat fucking stacks. Just to pay for his, like, prescriptions that month.

God, now I'm just picturing Jack Kirby standing on a chair with a noose around his neck doodling a centurion and he's just like if this one don't work I'm gonna kick this chair and he just starts drawing

and he just keeps thinking of Stanley in his head like we're both gonna make it big Jack we're both gonna make it big Jack keep drawing those cartoons Jack Friends forever ever ever Now I'm drawing a mustache on a robot or whatever the fuck this is

I can't tell who's robots and not Centaurians aren't robots No they're just dudes in like cybernetic suits Oh god, okay It's like a more It's like a more impossible Ironman suit Yes

Because the other thing that's built into this suit You're gonna Jack Kirby The other thing that's built into these suits That's kind of ridiculous Is they can transport Like teleport Yeah, anywhere in the world? Sure.

I mean, because why not? That makes things easier. To be fair, we're in the near future. Oh. Oh, I see. So it's not 1986. It's 1999. So clearly we can teleport wherever we want.

But it's like a shared world with William Gibson. Everything's futuristic and crazy. I'm jacked in. I'm a centurion. Well, I'm Johnny Mnemonic. And I'm bringing you information. So can I say that, I think Ace McLeod is the biggest

scumbag out of the Centurions. Big time. I can tell you why. So we had this scene where Crystal is teaching a self-defense class to a bunch of people on a space station. I don't know who these people are. You've never seen them before. Did people go from Earth? I mean, it's the near future.

I guess it's easy enough. The 2001 crew. Oh, I see. It might be a thing like the enterprise where like people were just living on it for amounts of time for no reason. I mean, because this is a big space station. It can't just be run by three centurions, a monkey, and Crystal.

To be quite honest, the centurions aren't doing much. They're just, show me where to shoot, basically. So Crystal's teaching the self-defense course, and she's trying to tell people, like, how you can take somebody down, and she goes, who will volunteer to grab me? At which point, Ace McLeod jumps in with, I thought you'd never ask, to which Crystal says, grab me from behind, to which, Ace McLeod responds, I've been waiting to do this for a long time. Jesus Christ, dude, I've got kids here. Totally.

They're eating fucking cereal and playing with your crappy toys. I don't want to think about behind action. Oh, man. And then, you know, Crystal flips this dude over. Something for the adults out there. I got to watch the Centurions. I may as well get a little something. It's kind of your classic April O'Neill situation

where she's everybody's girlfriend. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's never really specified. She's like, oh, my boys. You know, she's everyone and no one's boyfriend. She definitely wasn't dating that pig boss at Channel 6 News, though. No, absolutely not.

That guy was disgusting. No, I mean just the turtles only. Oh, turtles only. So animal mind control is the big plot of this. The land dude, his dog. They're on a separate training mission in the desert. They're a vision quest, I guess. Totally.

He's looking for peyote. There's all these holograms of lizard people he's shooting at. Dude, these are dinosaurs with bulletproof vests on. That's a real problem. Oh, yeah? Yeah, that's what Reagan was. Oh, the reptilians. We need Star Wars, Mommy, to catch these dirty reptilians.

Oh, I was watching a news program called the Centurians. But Reagan was a reptilian. But, you know, he might have wanted to. consolidate power by taking out all the other players in the reptilian high command, which is the other generals and stuff. Yeah, the Illuminati. Now I'm the only one, mommy.

I'm the last reptilian. Yeah, he whips at that snake tongue. Oh, yeah. So, um, the dog shadow, uh, please, yes. And, uh, he gets, uh, mind controlled by doctor and Jake Rockwell

for as much he loves this dog, draws immediately on it with his gun. He's like, shadow heel. Uh-oh, got to shoot you in the head. It's awesome. When one heel fails, he instantly cuts to, well, better blow its head off. He's like, I'll set it to stun. But, I mean, like, you don't know.

It's stunned for a guy. You don't know what's going to do to a fucking husky. I love the I'll set it to stun and all will be fun. Yeah, my ass. Rockwell. So he's firing on this dog. This dog's trying to bite his throat. out and it's just a man

fighting a dog a la jimbleushi in the first canine just wrestling this hound in the desert but it so it turns out that the end game is Doc Terra wants to turn like control all the animals on earth to create an uprising so that

to destabilize humanity so you could take over yeah this would have been an amazing twist ending to one of those Planet of the Apes sequels like oh yeah no apes guys sentient from

this terror wave from the space station of cyborg man cyborgs and doc terror and then doc terror and it's like calling the shots all along at the end of that Mark Wahlberg movie instead of Abe Lincoln

it should have been Doc terror oh totally dude and Lance Hendrickson as Doc Terror yes I was realized I think I said Abe Lincoln I meant ape Lincoln Oh, right. Yeah, I was confused for a second. I was like, Abe Lincoln's not in that movie.

Ape Lincoln is. Oh, do you mean Ape Abraham Lincoln? Come to Burton World and get a picture with Abraham Lincoln. God, that movie's fucking stupid. But he also turns the monkey against its controllers and gains control of the Centurion Space Station. and all these people that were taking self-defense classes are gone. Totally gone. So Crystal is being put into a cell, and she does a self-defense flip of a hacker.

But I mean, like, dude, that guy's got away as much as a car, right? Like, it's just a big robot. Like, it's like flipping a transformer. No matter whatever, you know, self-defense judo you've taken, you're not flipping a fucking car. And here's the big boner that Crystal commits in this scene, because she flips this huge robot over. And she's like, yeah, see, never underestimate your opponent or whatever it is. She repeats some line that she tells that pervert Ace McLeod. But then she walks.

Say it slow up, baby. She walks out of this cell and she doesn't close the door. Or kill him. Or kill him, I guess. Dump a bunch of water on him. What I love about when the ape gets its mind taken over is Dr. Tara is like, okay, now you just have to take out that control panel. take over that computer or something like that and it's just the worst production design

in this cartoon the ape just turns around and puts its finger up to a control panel and all of a sudden this computer just starts frizzing out all over the place no ape I told you to cut the green wire well yeah the production you cut the red wire the production design was shitty because

Jack Kirby was staying up late watching Stanley on David Letterman trying to finish his design Signs. How, what was the Marvel situation like in 1986? I mean, like, Stanley had an honorary position as, like, editor-in-chief or something, even though I did Jack Diddley shit for, like, 20 years. But was this where, like, the money trouble was kicking in?

That's, like, the mid-90s. Oh, so the bottom falls out. They were still riding high on the hog, then. Absolutely, and, you know, they were making Spider-Man cartoon shows and all sorts of stuff. Jack Kirby was definitely shooting his TV. fucking Travis Bickling that TV. Did he die on the toilet? Not to my knowledge.

Well, because Elvis shot TVs. Oh, right. I think so. Well, Jack Kirby didn't die in a golden toilet, I'll tell you that much. Clancy, use the remote. So, the Centurians' Shadows love for Jake overwhelms doctor's programming.

Yeah, he's like, come on, boy, don't you remember? It's me. It's me. Jake. And then it's like this stupid flashback of this dog's life back to like Jake saving it when it's a puppy and he's like putting a bandage around it. Dear God, what are we even watching? The dog's like the pink hypnotized eyeballs like fades away and the dog just starts like licking Jake's face. And the other two centurions who beam in and do absolutely nothing are just like, well, the day is saved. The dog's licking his face again.

And that's kind of, it's just like, yep, all right, Sandurian's great job. Meanwhile, in the city's elephants and lions, the carnage by these animals. They're all rising up. They're just, they're knocking over cars and stuff. And because they're like, not only just animals, but they're invincible. Like, they're robot police. They're shooting them with guns. Dude, it's a cameo by the security guards from chopping mall.

So this beam, not only gave them the strength of a cyborg. but control for doctor it doesn't make a lot of sense does it well it's a cartoon but the baby idiots well then why didn't i get it that's a good question why isn't it all our favorite cartoon exactly it's mine the one thing that's a bummer about this episode is they don't have max ray who's the water specialist is there's not that ham-fisted. Most episodes have a thing where like, all right, Doc Terror is attacking this

base, which has an air area, a land area, and wouldn't you know, a swimming pool that you can get into, Max? Like, it's a real kind of nightboat situation. Well, it's sort of awesome because it's like you feel like Max is looking around like, oh, great. This episode

takes place where? A space station, a major metropolitan area, and the desert? I guess I have the week off. centurions. Not much I can do with my sea abilities. But they decide they have to

like, so the doctora takes over their like transportation system. So there's this really ridiculous line where Ace or one of them goes, I think it's Ace, he's like, we'll have to get up there the old fashion route. Spacecraft. What the fuck?

That's the old fashion route? Jesus. Well, you know, it's the near future. You could just Hot wire a car, a flying car into space. I thought they were going to have to jump out, Star Trek into darkness style and fly across. That would have been pretty cool. But no, they just take the car.

Basically, they just sort of rewire this like Honda Centro or something and it's like up we go in this car to space. You know what's unfair though? So Max Ray, he's got 70% of the earth because it's water. Right. Jake Rockwell's got the land, which is where all your buildings and caverns are. Ace McLeod has the sky,

but not only that, he has space in, he's got infinity. Dude, like, well, not infinity, but, you know, it's big. It's very big. We better get Neil deGrasse Tyson on the line to try to fact-check centurions and the space size.

I mean, you couldn't get another black guy maybe to do space too. Like, maybe there's another guy on the team that does space. Please, if it was a black guy handling space, they'd kill him off in the pilot. Maybe that did happen in the pilot. But like...

Sorry, good buddy. You're going to have to take one for the team and be murdered. But I would love someone like that to explain to me now, okay, the universe is expanding. They say that, but didn't it start contracting recently? It did, which is very terrifying. Good. That's because Dr. Tara's getting closer.

Oh, shit. Doc Terra is coming back. Hey, at the end of the Centurions, is he finally murdered? and then, like, you know, they take him apart, they dismantle him. They turn him into a Ford Focus. Oh, it's the ultimate humiliation. I'm now a Ford Focus. Someone stuffs a gas nozzle up his...

Exactly. So, yeah, Ace McLeod gets some space gear because he owns the sky and all the moon, all of God's playground. Also heaven, right? Is there any heaven in... You watched all this shit. Is there any heaven in this? You know, like they go to heaven and hang out or something? No, but there is an episode where Merlin shows up.

The Merlin? The Merlin. Well, that's dumb. So King Arthur's confirmed. King Arthur's same universe. All that shit happened. The Britons. Hey, Jack, I heard you tried to draw Merlin this week.

Get out of my house. What are you doing here? I bought your house. And you're evicted, mighty marvelite. Get out on the street. All the glory for Stan Lee. Jack, I got money on how fast you'll starve to death out there. New York's a tough place.

See, you good buddy? You can't even afford a tab. in 1986. I'm your friendly neighborhood slum lord. Oh shit. So they saved the day. Sure they do. Like the centurions are known to do, man.

We've got, as per 80s cartoons with a bunch of mustachio dudemen in them. Seen's a guy is just breathing in space like it ain't no thing. Got that going on. Dr. Tara does live to fight another day if you can believe it. He escapes. I'll get you next.

time centurions i mean gadget no said what am i recording this week where am i what uh steve are because as we all know you're centurion's biggest fan sure uh is there any other villain besides doc terror yeah there's something called the chameleon that shows up he's like kind of he's a real cobra rip off he does the snake voice thing and everything god are you kidding me i don't know if he's an underagent for Doc Terror or not. Fair enough. Now it ends with one of my favorite things

in cartoons. It's a more you know. Well, first of all, it does end with a joke. The joke is like, oh, well Lucy, now that she's going to have to pay penance for betraying this all, I guess she's going to have to clean her room. And I'm like, that ape has a room?

That ape is responsible for cleaning its room. More than Jake Kirby has. Well, also, the ape understands English because it gets upset that it has to clean its role. Oook, ook, motherfucker. Doing ape jokes, huh, Jack? Stanley on a motorcycle with a hot babe on the back of it. He throws hot coffee in Jack Kirby's face and wheelies out.

Hey, baby, I ever tell you the time that I invented the X-Men all by myself? Room, room, room. Oh, my God. Spider-Man, that was all mean. No, so it ends with Crystal, and she's doing this the more you know animal facts. Yeah. And it's like, you know, today we saw animals get hypnotized by computer mind control. I turned into cyborg.

But in real life, animals have some pretty fun abilities on their own. And she's like, wolves can hear things at higher frequencies than humans can. elephants lower frequencies and sharks well they can detect magnetism in the ocean see you later and by the way Merlin was real I guess this show's legally allowed to be on the air now talk to you later

we're now putting the education section of TV God this 30 seconds so was anybody embarrassed watching this you know I wasn't I think this show is stupid as fuck, and it's a lot of fun. If you can find it, I think it's on YouTube a little bit here and there. It's just a dumb time. It's kind of like what every adult swim writer wishes they could write.

It's like a parody of itself at the same time. Right. It's kind of beautiful. Yeah, I mean, I didn't think it was that bad. I kind of like that G.I. Joe-esque animation. It just hits me in the right spot. Yeah, I mean, the action scenes in this are animated pretty okay. Yeah, all those hilarious lion attacks and so on.

Yeah, I don't know, I wasn't embarrassed. I would recommend you have a tall glass of water by your side for this one. That'll make things a little more interesting. Good a lot smoother. But yeah, I could kind of see myself taking a late Saturday night blowing through a bunch of Centurion episode. You know, Jack, I'm putting up a hotel next week. You want to come to the grand opening? Give him an address to a hotel.

He's exploding. We're just a janitor. Now you're my janitor, Jack Kirby. Clean these toilets. That's animation damnation for the month of April gang. If you want more, we hate movies, check out WHMpodcast.com. Until next time, I'm Andrew Jupin. Stephen Zeta.

Eric's sister. Take it easy. Thank you.