Be My Guest!

I'm not going to do all my usual entries, instead here's what I watched today, starting at midnight last night.

First up: "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!" Do I need to elaborate? I got a rock.

"The Devil and Daniel Mouse." Great memories of watching this Nelvana toon back in the 70s.

 

I seem to recall having a crush on the Jan Mouse. Great tunes and narration by John Sebastian.

"The Flintstones meet Rockula and Frankenstone." Cheesy Flintstones episode with Ted Cassidy as Frankenstone! Lots of cliches and a few laughs. Still lots of fun.

"The Halloween that Almost Wasn't." wasn't very good. But it has a great cast including Judd Hirsch, Mariette Hartley, Henry Gibson, and Jack Riley. On the plus side, it reinforced my origin stories of wearing costumes and All Hallows Day Eve.

"Disney's Halloween Treat." You can watch it on vimeo but you're better off seeing the clips in their entirety. From Wiki:

• "Madam Mim" – The Sword in the Stone (1963)
• "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence – Fantasia (1940)
• Clip of Pluto's Sweater (1949)
• Clip of Mickey's Parrot (1938)
• Donald Duck and the Gorilla (1944) – Donald Duck and his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie
• "Pluto's Judgement" sequence featuring three Pluto cartoons assembled together:
  • Puss Cafe (1950)
  • Cat Nap Pluto (1948)
  • Pluto's Judgement Day (1935)
• "Captain Hook" – Peter Pan (1953)
• "Cruella de Vil" – One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
• "The Evil Queen" – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
• "Si and Am" – Lady and the Tramp (1955)
• "Ichabod Crane and Headless Horseman" – The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
  

Tough to pick a favourite. Probably Ichabod.

Next up was "The Jetson's Haunted Halloween." which I don't ever recall watching before. I liked it except for their pet, Orbitty. It's probably easy to locate elsewhere, but try here for quick access.

"The New Misadventures of Ichabod Crane." was next. Worth watching if you're hard up for entertainment, otherwise stick with Disney or "Sleepy Hollow" (I plan to show my students Sleepy Hollow this week. They loved it last year, this year's class is less enthusiastic about English.)

I'd finished five beers by then and it was getting late, so I ignored "Witches Night Out" because I watched it last year. ZZZZZZZ

Today, I watched "Gargoyles" that great TV movie with Cornel Wilde from 1972.

And most of "Planet of the Vampires" AND "The House on Haunted Hill" AGAIN.

All of the above is courtesy of a Twitch channel. Just search for Daikaiju TeeVee. Trolls is on right now!

What follows is a friend's video. We were housemates 25 years ago when I lived in Tokyo and worked for NOVA. (NO VAcation!) Nice to see he's made something of himself.

 

It won or was nominated for a ton of awards including the following:

Winner Best Thriller Short - Prague Underground Film Festival April 2023 Winner Best Horror - London International Filmmakers Festival 2022 Winner Best Horror - Florida Shorts Festival 2023 Official Selection - Monster Fest Melbourne 2022 Official Selection - Diabolical Horror Film Festival 2023 Official Selection - LA International Horror Film Festival 2023 Official Selection - A Night of the Horror Festival 2023 Semi-Finalist - Dark Veins Horror Fest 2023 Semi-Finalist - Tokyo Shorts Festival January 2023 Semi-Finalist - Paris International Short Festival November 2022 Semi-Finalist Best Short Horror - San Francsiso Arthouse Short Festival 2023 Best Horror Nominee - Nicomedia Film Awards Winter 2023

I enjoyed it, how about you?

Back to normal entries tomorrow...

Streamer vs Setzer.

I don't really need to add anything to this, do I?

A Brief Commercial Message.

Another rainy night in Sendai, so just staying at home watching Cartoon Network. A bit of Bugs, Jetsons, Kimba, and coming up next, Fantastic Four. I am really enjoying the Jetsons. It holds up extremely well over time (Duh, it's the future!) I can't say the same for the Filmation version of FF, but it is good cheesy fun.

Speaking of cheesy fun, today's post is brought to you by うまいぼう (umai bo = delicious stick). These mini-sticks of Cheesy goodness (similar to Cheesies/ Cheetos) are not only cheese-flavoured, but come in all manners of tastes to suit your taste. (As always, just click on the photo to enlarge it.)







I have never purchased a single stick, but here I am with 10 of them. How, you may ask, did I acquire these cylindrical snacks? Shoplifting? Nah, nothing so mundane. I UFO caught them of course. These days, the UFO catcher spots are full of snacks. I only ever catch the ones that I know I can, and these babies are a piece of cake. At various Echo events, I show up with a faggot* of these sticks and am greeted with delight.






They all sport "Umaemon", a spoof of Doraemon. (Check out next year's movie. I have a certain affinity with the big blue cat, we have the same belly. Only I can't pull items out of my fourth-dimensional pocket. Well, maybe bellybutton lint.)

Today at the convenience store, I discovered some disheartening news. I get 10 of these sticks for 100￥ (more if I miss my booty...but I never miss.) But in the store, they are only 9￥ a piece! You can get 30 of the same flavour for 270￥. But because my captures include 10 different flavours, I consider it worth it.








Here are the flavours I got with this batch:
たこ焼き (takoyaki octopus balls.)
野菜サラダ (yasai sarada vegetable salad.)
明太子 (mentai pollock roe-not Jackson Pollock)
照り焼き (teriyaki)
サラミ (salami.)
チーズ (cheese.)
コーンポターシュ (corn potash.)
チキンカレー (chicken curry.)
とんかつソース (tonkatsu sauce )
えびマヨネーズ (ebi mayonaise, shrimp with mayo.)

Call me bland, unoriginal, tasteless...but my favourite is plain old Cheese flavoured!












*faggot: not what you may think...



Damn. Stating "faggot" may change my PG rating. Damn, so is saying "Damn"!

Attack of the Barberaians

Most everyone else has commented on the demise of Joseph Barbera. The "Pitchman" for Hanna-Barbera productions. Everyone I know grew up with his work, from Oh My Darlin' Huckleberry Hound, That Smarter than the Average Yogi Bear, Snagglepuss, Exiting Stage Right, my personal favourite, El Kabong with his sidekick Bubbaloey, the Yabbadabbadoing Flintstones, of course, and the Futurama of 1962, the Jetsons. Check out this galaxy far away for a parallel universe of Mr. Spacely's own lackey, George.



My least favourite H&B creations are Scrappy-Doo (who ruined Scooby) and that ubiquitous duo, Tom and Jerry. Maybe some of the Academy Award winners of the 40's were okay, but primarily it was just the same plot over and over again. (Hey, wait a minute, that sums up all H&B toons.) Joe Barbera was the Ultimate huckster for his creations. Fred was a shill for cigarettes before Pebbles came along. Then they sold Jam and pretty much every character of the 60's was featured on a cereal box. But I digress, I'm talking about Tom & Jerry.

A little known fact for those outside of Japan is: "Banks here use cartoon characters to entice people to put their money in their vaults." Snoopy, Hello Kitty, and others want you to invest your hard-earned shekels in their Financial Institution. So who's the spokespersons for my bank? Well, none other than Tom & Jerry (as if you needed to guess.)






The last thing I want to mention about H&B is about the Action/Adventure series of the 60's. I loved Space Ghost, BirdMan, the Herculoids and the toon that introduced me to Jazz, Jonny Quest. (Charlie Brown's Vince Guaraldi helped a lot, but Hoyt Curtin started the ball rolling. Hoyt did the Jetsons and Flintstones themes too.) Here's the theme song...