The "You know what?" thread

[minor muppetz]

Been watching some of the old '90s Apple Jacks commercials recently. At first I had trouble finding many in search, but did see more in related videos. Anyway, many of the ones I have been finding are from later in the 1990s.... And is it just me, or in the '90s, did they go from a usual formula (parents object to their kids eating Apple Jacks because it doesn't taste like apples), the kids say that's not why they like them, and when the parents ask why, they say "we just do!") to making fun of the format/doing variations on what had made the cereal great? Many of the later ones tend to have the kids mockingly quoting the adults, or something else that plays with out expectations.

Did they still do straightforward commercials by that point?

In some of them, an adult or "cooler" person comments on them eating the stuff, the kids jokingly quote what they expect them to say.... In the universe of the commercials, are they familiar with the commercials, or are they quoting the typical stuff because they personally get it a lot?

And do the parents buy them the Apple Jacks or do the kids buy it with their own money?

I wonder if there were people in real life who were just like the strawmen of the Apple Jacks commercials. What I'd really like to see is a modern day Apple Jacks commercial, with some of the former actors who appeared in the commercials when they were kids, as adults now, dealing with their kids eating the stuff.

I used to think that the line was "why do they call it Apple Jack's if they don't taste like apples?", as opposed to "why do you eat Apple Jack's if they don't taste like apples?", though I knew they were objective of the kids eating the cereal on those grounds. So far I haven't found any commercials that use the line I thought was the catch phrase. Are there any (maybe the first one of this format) where a parent does ask "why do they call it Apple Jacks if they don't taste like apples?" Is this a Beam Me up Scotty (not just to me but to others)?

With the format of making a big deal out of it being called Apple Jacks without tasting like apples, that is good marketing. People who hate the taste of apples might refuse to eat them until they see the commercials and learn that they do not taste like apples (maybe studies on that are what prompted these commercials).

 

[minor muppetz]

One thing that has been on my mind, and I think I talked about it here before (either in this thread, the questions about anything thread, or the "what's the deal" thread), in the old days of television, most shows seemed to have just one episode for each holiday (especially Christmas), if they had more it seemed to be based on how long the show lasted (I feel like each holiday had one episode for every four seasons), whereas these days they don't seem to care and most shows get a new Christmas episode (plus other holidays) every season.

One thing that occurred to me with this is that in the old days, Christmas and other holiday episodes were often only rerun during the appropriate time of the year, being skipped over in syndication until then (if the shows were shown in order). I guess companies didn't want too many episodes to be limited in syndication (and have to show the same episodes too often). But now it seems like holiday episodes don't get skipped over just because it's not that time of year yet.

But I wonder if such holiday episodes were as scarce back in the early days of television, when shows were broadcast live and nobody thought about rerunning episodes or preserving the shows for later use.

 

[minor muppetz]

Between the opening short in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the three Roger Rabbit shorts that followed, Tummy Trouble is the only one where we see how the short was supposed to end. In the movie, we see the short until Roger gets his "lines" wrong, and in the other, on-set accidents happen before the intended end.

Though I guess with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, is it clear whether Roger Rabbit and Baby Herman did shorts or feature films? They could have been doing a feature, for all we know.

In the films universe, Toons are treated like how people of race were treated back in the 1940s. One thing that recently occurred to me, which could be a metaphor: Back in the 1940s, cartoons were usually just shorts. I can't think of any fully animated feature films of the 1940s that were not done by Disney, and even in those cases, they rarely had established characters or characters who would continue to regularly appear in things (Walt Disney refused to do sequels). And even then, many of the Disney animated features that came by 1947 were package films as opposed to one full narrative (while Fantasia doesn't seem to be considered one, it is basically like one). It's as if Toon stars could only make a regular living in shorts, while Toons who got to do full length features would not get to do more (or maybe were more typecast-able than those in shorts).

 

[AquaGGR]

Hopefully I’m not poking at a fire, but I haven’t been truly active here in like 7-8 years (wouldn’t blame anyone for not remembering me) and logged back in today out of curiosity:

My “You know what?” is it’s interesting to see MC is seemingly having the opposite problem from when I frequented here, 2012/2013-ish. I think the main drama at that time was something about the influx of new, younger members and how a lot of them were derailing every thread to boost their post count. Compare that to the past two years where, from what I’ve gathered, everyone’s left and there’s some sort of difficulty in processing new users. Seems like nearly every veteran poster I was in conversation with has long since bailed—such is the state of the internet message board in 2022. It’s like the interweb equivalent of being reminded of your own mortality.

It’s a bit unfortunate that everywhere I look, Discord servers have ostensibly replaced forums since (imo) they serve different purposes: forums have threaded information whereas Discord is better for more immediate and temporary chat.

 

[minor muppetz]

Ever since seeing it in the chapter stops on Sesame Street: Old School Volume 1, I've learned that many official listings of titles list Sesame Street News segments as "Kermit News", though it's always referred to as "Sesame Street News" and the title card reads "News Flash". Kermit never refers to the bits as Kermit News. But the theme is registered as "Kermit News Theme", and most DVD chapter stops, official uploads, clapboard titles, and internal listings tend to call it Kermit News (there was a time when the official Sesame Street video site listed most of them as just "News").

But it seems to me that scripts and other internal listings of Sesame Street segments work in character names in titles when the title would not need it, like "Ernie Song: Rubber Duckie". Now I wonder if this was supposed to be the case with the news, listing it as a Kermit bit and that it's news before the titles, though I guess by that logic they could have just called it "Kermit SS News" (I don't think the Monsterpiece Theater segments get listed as "CM Monsterpiece Theater", or Mysterious Theater segments called "Sherlock Hemlock Mysterious Theater", and while it looks like game show segments often start the titles with "Game Show", I don't think they get listed as "Guy Smiley Game Show"). As if to let those searching for segments to use know that Kermit is in the segments and they are news segments (though you'd think they'd know Kermit is probably in it if it's listed as Sesame Street News). But then again, Kermit News does get used in DVD chapter stops and official online uploads (when it seems less necessary to list character names in the titles as it might in an internal listing, say if they were needing to find segments with certain characters to show).

 

[minor muppetz]

Caddyshack and The Sandlot both have memorable pool scenes, and yet both also have something involving Babe Ruth (in Caddyshack, it's the candybar, while in The Sandlot, it's his autograph on the baseball).

 

[minor muppetz]

I’ve heard that the first few episodes of Dinosaurs originally had a laugh track, removed from later broadcasts and home video releases (why must they alter things for video releases???). I don’t think that is mentioned on the wiki, I recall talking about this somewhere (maybe this forum).

but I had noticed something different about the first season compared to other seasons, I thought maybe the lessons/morals were more subtle, but also felt it a bit dark and maybe slow, something about most of the “Dinosaur TV” portions also seems different.
But if the first season indeed originally had a laugh track that was later removed (or if they planned a laugh track and decided against it), that would make sense for a slower pace, they would have been leaving room for a laugh track.

 

[minor muppetz]

Here's a commercial I saw when I was a kid, for Ace Treasure Trolls, which had jewels in their bellies and I think were supposed to be toys to wish on. The commercial made me think so (for a long time I thought they were called Wishing Trolls).

1992 Ace Treasure Trolls Commercial - YouTube

I had some when I was a kid, and was confused when I did not get my wishes granted (I expected my wishes to magically come true immediately).

But it's not until now that I realize something about the commercial: None of the kids are actually shown getting their wishes. The girl who wishes her violin was an electric guitar just plays with it as if it was one, the boy who wishes his jungle gym was really a jungle is just imagining he's in a jungle, and the girl who wishes training wheels were better trainers is still shown in grief. I wonder if this was done on purpose (implying they grant wishes without actually showing kids getting the wishes).

 

[minor muppetz]

I've heard that the reason The Simpson's arcade game was never released on a home console (well, it was released on some computers, does that count as consoles?) was because a different company held the home console rights to Simpson's games.

The Simpson's arcade is well-regarded and considered a classic, while the majority of Simpson's games are considered bad (well, there are a few I like well enough).

Could it be that the company behind the arcade game was better at making Simpson's games and perhaps should have held the license to all Simpson's games?

 

[Sgt Floyd]

actually, it was released on home consoles a while back, though it was pulled for whatever reason very soon afterwards. They also recently released a small scale replica home cabinet that combines the arcade game with simpsons bowling, though i havent heard good things about it. I think in this case it's not really so much two companies holding different rights but rather Konami, the company that made the game, being Konami and not wanting to release it for whatever reason. Konami just sucks.

at the time, konami was very well known for their arcade games, so it's probably more that konami knew how to make a good arcade game. you could really replace the simpsons theme with anything and still have a good game. I think in reality they just need to keep EA away from the simpsons lol.

I tell you what tho I would die for a re-release of Hit and Run.