The "You know what?" thread

[minor muppetz]

This is the first I heard of the small arcade replica. I’d seen there was one for Ninja Turtles and thought there should be one for the Simpson’s (though the Turtles one is just three of the levels).

 

[minor muppetz]

In the second Simpson's Halloween episode, the segments are the nightmares of Lisa, Bart, and Homer, but all three could have just as well have been Homer's nightmares.

Lisa's nightmare seems more like Homer is the star. He's the one to buy the monkey paw, he's featured the most, he ends the segment, and the effects of Lisa's wish are given just as much focus as Bart's.

Bart's nightmare involves him having magical abilities, which always works for him. He turns Homer into a Jack in the box for most of the story, which would make it Homer's nightmare. The only thing to make it a nightmare for Bart is the end, where Homer and Bart get along following Bart turning Homer back to normal.

 

[minor muppetz]

When it comes to adult cartoons on the networks (not cable channels), Fox seems to do the most successful, while ABC, CBS, and NBC all seem to avoid adult cartoons.

Of course, once The Simpson’s began, ABC and CBS tried their hands at prime time cartoons and those failed. CBS tried Fish Police and Family Dog (which I saw when it was on the air), while ABC did Capitol Critters and the first season of The Critic (which was slightly successful, considering it got a second season… on Fox).

Yet Fox did not hop on the band wagon and do a new prime time cartoon (they already had The Simpson’s, but they could have tried a second adult cartoon sooner) for about six years with the second season of The Critic, and then it was seven or eight years before they did another successful long running prime time cartoon with King of the Hill.

After the success of South Park, many adult cartoons started to premier, especially around 1999, I guess this was the start of when Fox was really getting into more adult animation. But then with this era, most of the shows were on Fox, The WB, or UPN. The only adult cartoon since to come to any of the original “big three” networks is Clerks, which ABC mistreated.

 

[Flaky Pudding]

The animation style of Tuca and Bertie reminds me a bit of the Sally Cruikshank cartoons from SS. A more modern take on her style, I guess.

 

[minor muppetz]

Over the years, there have often been new cable channels. I don’t think my cable provider ever added any new channels on the day they premiered. My cable provider always just added several new channels at once when they did.

But I assume new channels do get added at launch somewhere. I think I heard reports of what Noggin and Odyssey (two channels my provider never had when I would have really cared) on the days they were launched so I guess some people here had them, and it would be sad if a new channel was not available anywhere on day of launch.

When a new channel does premier, does it usually only premier on certain providers? Do certain cable providers vary in terms of adding the newest channel or several channels together? Is it just a case where certain cable providers want to wait to make sure the channels are a success?

 

[minor muppetz]

The other night I was watching the ME-TV "Tiny Toony Christmas Special", I noticed that back in the golden age of animation there weren't a lot of Christmas shorts, and yet most of the ones shown have very little dialogue, many focused more on being cute.

And yet of the shorts featured that originated in Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales, the one not included is the Road Runner short.

I was surprised that the special included a Screen Gems cartoon, as those haven't been part of Toon In with Me. Makes me wonder if they just got the rights to those (most of the cartoons are owned by Warner, but they also frequently show the cartoons from DePatie-Freling, and occasionally Betty Boob - though I think those might just be the public domain ones). I tried to look up whether that short, Holiday Land, is in the public domain, but don't see such info on wikipedia or TV Tropes.

 

[minor muppetz]

if Disney waited five years to start work on The Rescuers Down Under, it most likely would have been a made for video sequel.

 

[minor muppetz]

Many budget video companies have specialized in releasing animated shorts in the public domain, and many of them have a mix of cartoons and franchises from different studios. A video where the cover appears to spotlight Bugs Bunny might also include Tweety, Casper, and Betty Boop. Or a Popeye tape might also include Heckle and Jeckyl, Porky Pig, and a one-shot from Van Bueran studios.

For years, I figured the video companies didn't really care, and I might be right, but now I wonder if maybe they did it because they legally could. The professional studios weren't going to release public domain cartoons from other studios, Warner Home Video wasn't going to release pre-1948 cartoons that are in the public domain (and whoever held the rights to the pre-1948 package weren't going to release the public domain black and white WB cartoons with their WB cartoons). Perhaps the studios felt kids (and their parents) would like a tape with a mix of characters they might not normally see included in the same tape or half hour of programming.

On the other hand, many of these types of tapes do highlight just one character on the cover, making it look like a spotlight video for a certain character, only the video would only have one cartoon with that character. The back of the boxes usually did list the other cartoons and who was in those (though the Cartoons R Fun tapes didn't list what other cartoons were included aside from the title short).

 

[minor muppetz]

I was watching Return of Jafar for the first time in years. With the way Iago got himself out of the lamp and dug out, he could have just rubbed the lamp while underground and they could have gotten out easier. And if Iago had agreed to just free Jafar out of his lamp, he would have been in charge of Jafar.

 

[minor muppetz]

In the Animaniacs episode "Potty Emergency", Wakko gets a toilet out of a sack that carried all sorts of larger-than-the-sack items, and then his problem is having a private place to use the potty. Considering how much he could fit in the sack, couldn't Wakko have gotten privacy just by using the potty inside that sack?