THURSDAY THEME SONG: THE ADVENTURES OF THE LITTLE PRINCE

The Little Prince

The final installment for "Narrative Theme" month is Japanese show based on a french book.

The Adventures of the Little Prince

In July of 1978, Hoshi no Ojisama Puchi Puransu was released in Japan. The series, which means Prince of the Stars: Petit Prince, contained 39 episodes may of which were directed by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. Yasuhiko not only directed but was also the character designer. He then went on to be the influential character designer for Mobile Suit Gundam.

The series was re-cut and dubbed into English and brought to a North American audience in 1982. Only 26 of the 39 episodes were dubbed.

The story, which is loosely based on the 1943 book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, follows the adventures of a young boy who lives on a tiny planet called B6-12. He lives alone on that planet so every episode he rides a comet to Earth, his favourite planet and meets the local people.

The show was a hit with small children and became quite dear to children of the eighties. Do you remember this theme song?

SHREK? BLECK!

Shrek grimaces at his new movie.

If you want to see some of the worst animation ever, check out this promo for the Shrek babies that made their big screen debut in Shrek the Third.

Speaking of Shrek the Third, the second sequel to the popular Shrek franchise hit it big on opening weekend. $121,629,270 and the highest opening weekend for an animated film! Wow!

I can't say that I am a fan of these Shrek movies. I enjoyed the first one because it was new and fresh. I liked the parody and the characters, but now I am disgusted with the fan-base and marketing strategies.

Dreamworks seems to be marketing this movie to kids, which is very understandable: It is an animated film with cute characters and fart jokes. But the writers of this movie have filled the second film so much with Hollywood in-jokes that I find it hard to believe that children had a good time at all. Scenes are segued to the extreme in order to fit the most irrelevant movie parody thus distracting from the story.

I found Shrek 2 very hard to watch and, while I plan on watching Shrek the Third, I will wait until I can rent it.

Not Disney Princess!

But enough is enough. Dreamworks should let this franchise rest before they milk it dead. They have got three blockbuster movies and should stop while they are on top. Will they? Of course not. A fourth film is already in to works as well as a Puss-In-Boots spin-off and a Shrek holiday special for tv.

I really wish they would focus more on the rest of their animated library. I felt that Over the Hedge, a fantastic film, didn't get the publicity that it should have.

On the other hand, the upcoming Bee Movie has had some great marketing. The live-action trailers were great teasers and now I read that Jerry Sienfeld launched himself across a zipline in his bee costume overtop the Bee Movie premiere at the Cannes Film Festival! Great stuff! This is what Dreamworks should be doing!

CLONE WARS TRAILER IS OUT!

We are mighty!

Check out this new trailer for the upcoming Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series.

This two-minute preview showcases the animation and special effects. I really like how they are keeping the look of this show consistent with the look of the films. But i also like that they are not trying to make the characters look real beyond belief. They have a definite cartoony look to them.

I was a little wary about this show but upon seeing this trailer, I have a new hope.

Click here for the trailer!

THURSDAY THEME SONG: FLASH GORDON

Week four of "Narrative Themes" month brings us one of the greatest sci-fi series of the seventies:

Flash Gordon and Dale Arden.

Flash Gordon

What was the ultra-huge sci-fi movie blockbuster that came out in 1977? You got it! Star Wars re-wrote the way space and sci-fi movies were made, so it is no surprise if you watch the old Filmation Flash Gordon series from 1979 and see a lot of Star Wars influence.

Originally as a comic strip from the 30s, the animated adventures of Flash Gordon follow the edge-of-your-seat adventures storylines that leave you on a cliffhanger at the end of every episode.

This serial style of storytelling was not new to the comic strips but it was something that was not usually done in a children's cartoon. Enticing viewers to return everyday to see what happened next worked well for the show as it ran its sixteen episode premiere season but did not bring in the ratings that the network wanted.

Princess Aura

Two years later, NBC ordered a second season but insisted that each episode was to be self-contained. In fact, NBC wanted two eleven-minute stories per episode! They wanted a show that was geared to a younger audience in the hopes to get stronger ratings than in season one.

An addition to the show was a small baby dragon called Gremlin that was added as the pet/sidekick/comic releif that every show in the seventies and eighties seemed the need to have. Gremlin stole the spotlight in many of the episodes only to be hated more and more by the fans.

To fans of the show, this second season was a disgrace. The fun and adventure of the first season had disappeared and what remained was a pile of garbage. The show was cancelled after eight episodes.

MORE CLONES ON THE WAY!

My what big eyes you have!

Starwars.com has released a promotional poster for the brand new Clone Wars animated series that is set to debut in 2008.

This show will be computer animation and will take place between Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

It will also be a continuation of the 2003 Flash animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars that aired on the Cartoon Network.

So far, Anthony Daniels is the only confirmed cast memeber for the show. He has always been the voice of C-3P0 in all six movies and every animated series. Good for him for returning once again. Fans eat that stuff up.

THURSDAY THEME SONG: CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER FRIENDS

In 1973, Hanna-Barbera launched the very first animated series based on the superhero team the Justice League of America!

This childrens' show went through many changes before airing, the most significant is
changing the name to Super Friends. In the height of the Vietnam War, HB thought it would be too jingoistic so a new 'friendlier' name was given.

There has never been a more epic battle

Challenge of the Super Friends was the third Super Friends series that ran during the 1978-1979 television series. The hour-long episodes were made up of two half-hour segments. The first segment stories were similar to the previous season, The All-New Super Friends Hour, which featured Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna.

The second segment stories were called The Super Friends vs. The Legion of Doom which saw a handful of villains teaming up to take over the world and take down the Super Friends.

l-r Apache Chief, Black Vulcan and Samurai

Twelve villains were hand picked by Lex Luthor to join the Legion of Doom.

The roster included Solomon Grundy, Sinestro, Black Manta, Cheetah, Giganta, the Scarecrow, Toyman, the Riddler, Bizarro, Brainiac, Captain Cold and Gorilla Grodd.

The heroes that battled the Legion of Doom were Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman.

The Wonder Twins were cut from the roster in the half of the show for some reason.

Three new characters were created to join the Super Friends in order to add a
bit of cultural diversity to what would be an entirely white cast of characters. Their names are Black Vulcan, Apache Chief and Samurai and I'll let you guess which ethnic group each of them represent. While Hanna-Barbera's intentions were good at the time, they now seem quite stereotyped.

The theme to the Legion of Doom segment was written by John Beal and narrated by William Woodson.

FINAL TOM & JERRY DVD SET ANNOUNCED!

Adding to the wonderful list of classic cartoon DVD being released this year is the final volume of Tom & Jerry! This is very exciting news and I hope that Warner Home Video will pay a bit more attention in what they are doing with this set. Volume One and two were advertised as complete, uncut and unedited but that was not the case as a number of shorts in both volumes were edited! Look for the description below.

Tex Avery's Droopy

Woody Woodpecker

May 15: Droopy - the Complete Theatrical Collection 24 shorts on 2 discs. All of Tex Avery's and Michael Lah's shorts including the Oscar nominated One Droopy Night. I have started watching this set and while the cartoons are a joy to watch, this set contains some of the worse cases of DNVR I have ever seen. It is very distracting to watch.

July 24: The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection 75 shorts on three discs that include fan-favourites such as Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda, Wally Walrus, Oswald Rabbit and many other Walter Lantz classics!

July 31: Popeye the Sailor - Volume 1: 1933-1938 60 shorts on 4 discs. All of the great Fleisher Studios Popeye cartoons are presented here, many for the first time, fully restored and in chronilogical order! Commentaries, documentaries and featurettes make up the many bonus features.

Popeye the Sailor

Early art work for
Tom & Jerry Vol.3

September 11: Tom & Jerry Spotlight Collection Volume Three This final volume will complete the collection of Tom & Jerry shorts directed by Will Hanna and Joe Barbera. A fourth volume of the Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones short would be nice but not likely.

December 11: Walt Disney Treasures: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit 26 shorts on two discs. The Treasures line of DVD is an annual event that Disney fans always look forward to. This year is a major highlight as this pre-Mickey Mouse star comes to DVD in a complete collection.

December 11: Walt Disney Treasures: The Chronological Donald - Volume Three 30-35 shorts on two discs. This third volume will include the first cartoons starring Donald's co-stars, Chip n' Dale!

But wait! There's more! We should hear about Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Five sometime this summer. That set will have 60 more Looney Tunes shorts on four discs and will come out sometime this fall! Talk about good news! I won't be leaving my house this summer!

DVD REVIEW: ANIMANIACS - VOLUME ONE

Volume one box art

Animaniacs
Volume One

No. of Discs: 4
No. of Episodes: 25
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Release Date: July 25, 2006
Run Time: 550 minutes
Full Frame - 1.33:1

Story: Animaniacs is a multi-character skit show in the same style as The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show and Harveytoons. Each five-ten minute short focuses on a different group of characters.

Pinky and the Brain, two lab mice bend on global domination, Slappy Squirrel, a retired cartoon character who was big in the 30s, Buttons and Mindy, a little girl and her faithful dog who keeps her from getting hurt by sacrificing himself, Chicken Boo, a chicken who wants to be a human, and of course, the three Warner siblings who are just wacky and zany.

History: After working on Tiny Toon Adventures, producer Tom Rugger wanted to create a show with characters based on the old-time cartoon characters of the 30s and 40s. The result was the Warner Brothers and their sister, Dot.

The show was hugely popular not only with children, but also with a college-age crowd because of the many cultural references that children don't understand. Two of the show's characters, Pinky and the Brain, left the show to star in their own spin-off.

Polka Dot?

Favourite Episode: King Yakko This parody of the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup is a joy to watch. Not only is it ripe with slapstick, puns and fun songs, but it also has some of the better
animation in the series. Yakko inherits the kingdom of Anvilania just in time to defend it from a rival kingdom that want to take all of its anvils.

Audio & Soundtrack: Music plays a big role in Animaniacs. Multiple original song were written for each episode often parodying famous classical and folk songs. The most famous song in the show has got to be Yakko's World in which Yakko sings every country (and points to each one - great animation!) to the tune of the Mexican Hat Dance.

The audio on the dvd is Dolby 5.1 (which is stupid because the show was originally broadcast in 2.0) and 2.0 so you get to pick how you want to listen to the Warners.

Video & Animation: The use of rotating, over-seas animation studios causes each episode to vary in quality. This is most notable in the Warners sketches because each team makes the trio look off-model when comparing them to each other. I remember watching the show and thinking how good the animation was. But I was thirteen. Even the timing suffers from the lack of a theatrical budget.

The video on this dvd is good for the show. Everything is clear and clean.

Baloney in their slacks.

Extras: Not much here except for an interview with voice actors Rob Paulsen, Jess Harnel, Tess MacNeille and Sherri Stoner. It is hosted by Maurice LaMarche and the gab for a while about what they liked about the show. It's sort of interesting but only if you are a big fan of the show.

Packaging: Warner Home Video has released this set in a digi-pack that has two discs set one on top of the other, making it impossible for the bottom disc to come out with removing the top disc. I realize it saves space but it is quite annoying. Package art look great and follows a similar look with the Pinky and the Brain releases.

Summary: This show, just like the old Looney Tunes cartoons, suffers from dated jokes but is otherwise a pretty funny show. And while the animation sometimes suffers, you will still get a kick out of watching it. A-

Trivia: Yakko, Wakko and Dot were originally ducks called Yakki, Smakki and Wakki but the idea was scrapped because they thought that Disney has already over-saturated the duck market (DuckTales, Darkwing Duck).

Episode Guide:
Animaniacs.doc 59K

THURSDAY THEME SONG: JOHNNY BRAVO

Week two of "Here's Johnny!" and I've got a good one for you! This will be the last week for Thursday Theme Songs this month because I will be going away for a few weeks (to get married!). I will resume the Thursdays when i return in May!

But now...on with the post:

Who wouldn't want a piece of this?

Johnny Bravo

Johnny Bravo is a show about picking up chicks. Johnny is a totally ripped, Elvis influenced, ego-maniac who will try just about anything to get a girlfriend. Unfortunately, he usually messes up and gets clobbered by whatever girl he's trying to impress.

The Cartoon Network show ran four seasons and 65 episodes between 1997 and 2003. While the absurd and slapstick humour is some of the appeal, the real reason for watching the show is to see which guest star will make a cameo!

Donny Osmond is a regular guest star
on the show.

Everyone from cartoon characters like Scooby-Doo and the Gang, the Flintstones and Huckleberry Hound to real life stars like Mark Hamill, Adam West, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Don Knotts, Dr. Phil, Jessica Biel, Alec Baldwin, Luke Perry, Farrah Fawcett, Dionne Warwick, Mick Jagger, Richard Simmons, Mr. T, Shaquille O'Neal, Seth Green, and Donny Osmond, who was a regular guest star. The guest stars were perfectly charactered with the actors providing the voices to their cartoon counterpart.

The series was created by Van Partible, who did a bulk of the writing and animating. Butch Hartman, creator of Fairly Odd Parents, and Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, joined Partible to make the show hilarious.

There was supposed to be a live action Johnny Bravo movie starring the Rock but for some reason it was shelved.

THURSDAY THEME SONG: JONNY QUEST

This month will only contain two Thursday Theme Songs because I will be out of town on a vacation/honeymoon for the last two weeks of April. So I have two theme songs for you and if there is ever another month with only two Thursdays I will post another two on this theme: "Here's Johnny!"

Are we there yet?

Jonny Quest

Jonny Quest, the story of an eleven-year-old boy who tags along on his scientist father's dangerous explorations, is a fan favourite of kids young and old. The action and stories are exciting, the drawings and animation are fun to watch and the characters are fun to be around.

When Hanna-Barbera first developed the show, they wanted an action-adventure show based on the popular radio program Jack Armstrong. But licensing fell through and the show was reworked into Jonny Quest.

One of the first things you will notice about this show, especially comparing it to other Hanna-Barbera shows like Scooby-Doo, Flintstones or even Super Friends, is that the artists have pulled out all the stops.

How is Dr. Quest gonna get outta this one?

Hanna-Barbera shows had a small budget because they were a small time animation company. They didn't have the revenue that Disney or Warner Bros did so they had to find creative way to make their show good but cheap. A lot of the time the animation suffered because it would be to expensive to make a character get up out of a chair or change direction while running on screen.

But HB knew that Jonny Quest needed to have better quality animation and artwork in order to tell the stories the wanted. The result was bold and dynamic characters and backgrounds and animation that was still limited but way more fun to watch.

The show was cancelled after one season even though ratings were high. The show was just too expensive for Hanna-Barbera to keep in production.

This theme song is by Hoyt Curtin who did most of Hanna-Barbera's music in the sixties and seventies.

TURTLE BOX OFFICE POWER

This past weekend saw the opening of five new movies, including The Hills Have Eyes 2 and Reign Over Me, but it was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that took the box office this weekend beating out two-week champion 300.

I have not seen this movie yet but I'm glad to see that the Turtles have not lost their touch. Eighties children fell in love with the old cartoon and the popularity lasted through the mid-nineties with ten seasons of cartoons and three live action feature films.

The franchise looked like it may be in trouble in in late nineties with a terrible, live-action version of the show that was supposed to be a continuation of the movies but ended up being garbage. But the new Turtles show that came out a few years ago showed that the Turtles could still be popular. Hopefully this movie will solidify the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise for a long time coming.

I plan to see this movie on Easter weekend so I'll try to get a review of it up in the few days following.

THURSDAY THEME SONG: THE SNORKS

This week's "Underwater Adventure" is classic for all you 80s kids out there:

Image from slocartoon.com

The Snorks

First a Belgian comicbook by Nic Broca in 1982, Snorks became and animated series produced and animated by Hanna-Barbera from 1984-1986. The 65 episode series featured a race of underwater creatures that had snorkle-type growths on their heads that allowed them to propel through the water at fairly high speeds. They have your typical Saturday morning adventures and usually end up learning a leason or two by the end of the episode.

Many people compare the Snorks to the Smurfs, another Hanna-Barbera series that came out a few years earlier. In each show, the race of creatures is small, but that is where the similarities end.

There is not much to say about this show. It came, it was mass-marketed, it was popular, it disappeared. It has not had a DVD release yet, which has saddened many of the show's fans.

POKEMON REVELATION

What? Kids still love us?

I work with children in an after school program in East Vancouver and we have been putting on a special camp for Spring break this week (which is partly why I haven't been posting regularly).

I was quite surprised when I saw a bunch of kids pulling out their Pokemon cards so that they could trade and battle. Is Pokemon still popular? Apparently so. Pokemon first aired in North America in 1998 and took the continent by storm. The series is still being made to this day, now pushing 500 episodes, but it is nowhere near as popular as it was at the end of the previous millennium.

But kids are still playing the game. And the really fascinating thing about it was that out of this group of about five boys from camp is only one of them is Asian. The camp has about forty kids and over half of them are Asian (this is Vancouver after all), so to see a Columbian, an Iranian and two Greeks playing Pokemon and totally into it was quite a surprise. What a multi-cultural world we live in!

THURSDAY THEME SONG: SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS

If anyone askes who the most popular cartoon character of the mellenium is, most will say SpongeBob SquarePants. Who is this sponge and why is he so special? Those questions and more will be answered in this week's "Underwater Adventure" Thursday Theme Song!

SpongeBob and the denizes of Bikini Bottom

SpongeBob SquarePants

Ever since SpongeBob Squarepants debuted in 1999, the show has mega-high ratings. In fact, it is the only cartoon to contently be in the Neilson Rating's Top 10. It beat down the Pokemon wave of popularity and his image appears on virtually everything that can be sold.

The premise of the show is simple: It is about the day to day adventures of a sponge living at the bottom of the pacific ocean. SpongeBob lives in a pinapple in Bikini Bottom where he goes to school, works at a fast food restaurant and plays with his neighbours, Patrick the starfish, Squidward the squid, and Sandy the squirrel.

Creator Stephen Hillenburg was a marine biologist until he desided to switch careers and join Nickelodeon in 1993 and worked as a writer and storyboard artist on Rocko's Modern Life. When Rocko was canelled, Hillenburg decided to create his own show based on the sea creatures that he grew to love in marine biology.

SpongeBob's Macy's Day Parade float

The appeal of the show is the absurd humour. The writers have been smart by making a lot of the humour appeal to adults. While the goofy characters are great for the kids and international markets, many of the situations and character traits are those that only adult would understand. This created a large fan base for the show.

The show took a hiatus of sorts after the movie was released in 2003. Between 2003 and 2005 only seven new episode were made and the show saw its lowest ratings and was threatened with cancellation. This may have been a really elaborate marketing gimmick because the major comeback and new season of SpongeBob brought in record numbers and many more new fans.

SpongeBob SquarePants will be back for a sixth season and Gene Simmons is going to provide the voice for a sea monster in one of the episodes.

ALICIA KEYS TO BE A DISNEY PRINCESS?

Click picture for larger image

Disney's Annual Shareholders' Meeting happened last week and Disney unveiled some new work from their new, upcoming 2D feature The Frog Princess. I have posted two pictures here of some character designs for the lead character of Princess Maddy that were projected on a big screen as Randy Newman played and song on the piano.

As you can see, Maddy will be Disney's first black princess. Mandy is a young southern girl living in New Orleans in the Roarin' 20s. I don't quite know how the whole 'princess' thing will fit in, but I guess time will tell.

Click picture for larger image

Alicia Keys has been auditioned for the role of Maddy and rumour has it she has been called back for a second interview. Keys has never done any voice work before to my knowledge. I hope that she turns out to be a good fit. I like her singing voice and since Frog Princess is a musical set in the 20s so I think Keys is a good fit.

THURSDAY THEME SONG: AQUAMAN

This week's Thursday Theme Song, and going along with the Underwater Adventures theme, is the very first aquatic superhero:

Aqualad and Aquaman

Aquaman

Filmation, most know for their 80s nostalgia hit He-Man, got into the animation business quite early. 1963 saw the debut of their first show, Rod Rocket, and 1966 saw the debut of their second show, The New Adventures of Superman.

In 1967, Filmation repackaged Superman into a new hour-long series called The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure which featured reruns of the six-minute Superman episodes and new six-minute Aquaman cartoons.

Also included in the show were rotating 'guest star' episodes feature many DC Comics stars, including the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Atom, Superboy, the Justice League of America and Teen Titans. Most of these heroes were seen for the first time in this series and would go on to their own series in later years.

"Superman! I'm open!"

The animation in this show is very limited as was the practice by Filmation. Budgets were very small so animation was reused as much as possible and characters only moved if they really needed to. This became Filmation's signature in animation and lasted all throughout the studio's life.

In 1968, Aquaman got his own series which was a 30-minute version of the Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, only without Superman.

Aquaman's voice was provided by Marvin Miller, who is best know for his work as Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet. Aqualad was voiced by Hanna-Barbera regular Jerry Dexter.

The voice you will hear in this theme song is none other than Ted Knight who was the narrator in many cartoons of this era including Super Friends. His most well know work is Ted Baxter from the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

THURSDAY THEME SONG: THE LITTLE MERMAID

Welcome to a new month and a new theme! The month of March brings us "Underwater Adventures!" Every show this month will feature the residents of the fathoms below! First up:

C'Mon Urchin! Everyone's doing it!

The Little Mermaid

With the huge success of Disney's 1989 blockbuster hit The Little Mermaid, the Mouse House sat around thinking of a way to keep the popularity going. The result was a tv series based on the ever popular characters from the film and placing them in events that happened before the movie.

The Little Mermaid television series aired in the fall or 1992 with a tv special called A Whale of a Tale and them went on to become a Saturday morning hit.

Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel from the film, reprised her role of the mermaid for the series which featured new songs, some that are arguably better than the film's tunes! The most popular being In Harmony. New characters, like the merboy Urchin, were also introduced to support regular cast members Ariel, Sebastien and Flounder.

The actual English title card

The animation was not any where near the level of the movie but Disney's Television Animation Department did quite well compared to some of their other work. The Little Mermaid was the first show to spin out of a Disney movie, which has now become the norm.

The theme song is a medley of Part of Your World and Under the Sea, the two most popular songs from the movie. You will note that the end of this clip is in Spanish. This is because I couldn't find an English version! Sorry...

HAPPY FEET WINS THE OSCAR!

Why so glum? You just won an Oscar!

Some people are surprised, others are not. But the fact remains that Happy Feet has won the Best Animated Feature Film Academy Award for 2006.

But what does this mean for the future of animated films? Will the motion-cature process become the new thing? Is 2D dead? Is CG on the way out? Even Disney is now jumping on the mo-cap bandwagon, setting up their very own department dedicated to motion-capture.

A quick look at this year's animated films tells us that not everyone is switching over to mo-cap...yet. Shrek the Third, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Bee Movie are all CG and the hand drawn Simpsons Movie is sure to be a big hit this summer.

But you can probably bet that because of Happy Feet's success, every studio will start production on a mo-cap movie and have them out as early as next year.

Also, Torill Kove's The Danish Poet won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Subject.

THURSDAY THEME SONG: PAC-MAN

This week is the last installment of 'Toons Based on Video Games' Month. This week's theme is arguably the most popular video game of all time.

Pac-Man

Pac-Man followed the adventures of Pac-Man, his wife, Mrs. Pac-Man and their child Pac-Baby. Together they live in Pac-Land and spend their time stopping the evil Mezmeron from getting his hands on the 'power pellets', the source of Pac-Man's power.

Mezmeron's hired help consists of Pac-Man's well known video game adversaries, the Ghost-Monsters: Inky, Blinky, Pinky, Clyde and Sue. They are the typical bumbling villains that always seem to be menacing at the beginning of the episode but goofballs by the end of the episode.

Pac-Man was created by Namco Games in 1978. Its popularity grew to epic proportions over the next decade and Hanna-Barbera decided to created their own show based on the game. This series lasted 43 episodes from 1982-1983. Originally, Pac-Man was part of a 90 minute programming block in 1982 by Hanna-Barbera called The Pac-Man/Little Rascals/Ritchie Rich Show but then broke of into its own half hour show in 1983.

The Pac-Man series also had its own video game spin-off, called Pac-Land which was a side-scrolling platform game, like Super Mario Bros.



Here is an interesting fact about the Pac-Man video game that I got from Wikipedia:

A "perfect Pac-Man game" is defined as one where the player completes all 256 levels with a maximum point score and without losing a life. The first such game was verified by the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard on July 3, 1999. Billy Mitchell, of Hollywood, FL, achieved the feat in six hours. To attain the maximum possible score of 3,333,360 points, it was necessary for Mitchell to eat every fruit, every energizer, every blue ghost and every dot for 256 boards.

DISNEY VILLAINS - BEST AND WORST

My feet are really cold. And instead of getting slippers, I decided to write this blog.

The other day in my character design class we were discussing our favorite Disney villains. It got me thinking... what makes a great villain? What is it that makes someone truly villainous? I went through the list of Disney villains and discovered there are four basic villain types: Silly, Power-Hungry, Animal Killer, Evil.

The Silly villains are like Clayton (Tarzan), Captain Hook (Peter Pan)and Gaston (Beauty and the Beast). They're basically plot elements for the story. There needs to be a villain, but the movie wouldn't be the same with a truly evil villain. They're mostly stupid or oblivious.

The Power-Hungry villains would be Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty), Hades (Hercules) and Jafar (Aladdin). Their motivation is simply that they're not at the top and they'll get rid of anyone who stands in their way of getting there.

The Animal Killer category I know seems weird, but I think it deserves its own classification. Is Cruella (101 Dalmations) power hungry? Is McLeach (The Rescuers Down Under) really pure evil? The reason we hate them is because they're trying to kill our heroes simply because they're animals. Would Cruella kill a human? No, probably not.

The Evil villains are the villains who have no motivation to harm others or do the bad things they do. They're pure evil. We really hate them, even though they're just a bunch of drawings moving quickly in front of us.

So my Top 5 Disney Villains list consists of the following truly evil villains:

1. Judge Claude Frollo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
2. Scar (The Lion King)
3. The Queen/Witch (Snow White)
4. Shere Khan (The Jungle Book)
5. The Stepmother (Cinderella)

I realize the last three have motivation in that their status or power is being threatened by the main character. But the reason I put the Wicked Witch and Stepmother on there is because they're heartless towards girls who should be treated as their own daughters. The Wicked Witch actually tries to have Snow White killed. And Shere Khan has what I would call the same kind of evil as the Borg from Star Trek. When he shows up, you know you're screwed. All of the animals of the jungle are scared to death at the mention of his name. He rules the jungle because his threatening presence has given him that power. I think he's one of the scariest Disney villains.

Scar is very similar to the two stepmothers. He does have motivation - he wants to be in charge. He is a power hungry villain. But whereas the stepmothers tried to get rid of daughters who weren't technically related to them... Scar kills his own flesh and blood. There's also the manipulation factor that really twists him.

My top, most evil, most despicable villain of all time is Judge Claude Frollo. He's racist, judgemental, cruel... and he does it all in the name of God. He judges on appearance. He manipulates. And everything he does is to make him look good before God. We're never really given a real motivation for why is the way he is, other than his religion. To me, he's as evil as they come.

And just because I feel like it... here are my Top 5 Worst Disney Villains:
1. Sir Ector (Sword in the Stone)
2. Governor Ratcliffe (Pocahontas)
3. Prince John (Robin Hood)
4. Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)
5. Clayton (Tarzan)

Not that I don't like these characters. They just aren't great villains. And then there are movies like Dumbo and Bambi that just don't really have villains. Maybe that's why they put me to sleep. Let me know how you would rate your villains!