Welcome to Toon Year!

It's official, I was not able to keep to my schedule of one cartoon every day. Thankfully, that failure was due to getting a new job as project manager for a marketing firm.

I probably would have been able to keep up had I not signed on for transitioning the place to Scrum in my first week, but I loves me some agile project management.

Then, on the Friday of my first week at the new job, I drove 5 hours to help my brother move all weekend. Now, I'm heading back to the job with no weekend under my belt.

Well, I guess not paying attention to my blog paid off. Got my ass a job.

Starting Monday, I'll be a project manager at a marketing firm here in Kansas.

I don't neccessarily want to be in Kansas, but this will give me the opportunity to regroup financially, get some money in the bank, get a new car and start to build a foundation. Maybe 30 will be a responsible year.

Day 214: Men in Black - Somehow better than the 2nd movie

Day 215: The Maxx - Just as bizarre as the comics

We lost another one today. I can't believe it. Monty Oum. He was 33, at the height of his professional endeavors and just shining as a source of creativity and weirdness.

I've been listening to the Rooster Teeth Podcast for many years. I like their "fuck it" view of everything, their humor and their ability to make something out of basically nothing. They're like this ball of uncontrolled creative potential that just rolls through the internet, picking people up at random. It's inspiring in a chaotic way.

The first PAX I attended in 2008, I went to the Rooster Teeth panel. They unveiled a new season of their machinima series Red vs. Blue, a web that was, at that point, entirely shot and acted within the games Halo and Halo 2. As a surprise to pretty much everyone there, these new episodes featured full CG, something they hadn't done before.

They then pulled up a scruffy dude and introduced him, Monty Oum. I didn't recognize the name, but realized he'd done Haloid and Dead Fantasy, two weird/indie game fight scene mashups that I'd passed around in college. He was a little shy and a little eccentric, but seemed like a cool guy and clearly super-talented.

A few PAXs later, Monty over-zealously autographed my box set of Red vs. Blue DVDs seasons he hadn't worked on... but I won't hold that against him.

Seven years at Rooster Teeth and Monty has gone on to create some of the most amazing fight scenes I've ever seen animated. What had started as this static, dick joke-laden web series had grown into this elegant, at times action-packed narrative.

A few years ago, I don't remember when exactly, I was able to attend another PAX Rooster Teeth panel. I always attend these alone as I have no friends that are into Rooster Teeth. It's always been kindofa private indulgence I've never been able to really share with anyone. There, they premiered Monty's pet project, an animated series called RWBY.

Some of the fight scenes were cool, overall not really my thing, but the happiness on Monty's face when the crowd gave him a well-deserved standing O was so inspiring. This is a guy that was discovered by people he was a fan of and was able to make a thing with them that was 100% his. His vision, his style, his everything.

The first season of RWBY went up on Netflix yesterday, the day after Monty suffered an allergic reaction during a medical procedure that left him comatose. Today, he passed away.

It's an abrupt end to an inspiring life and one that will be felt by many people. As his friends at Rooster Teeth said today, celebrate his memory by being creative and using your spark to make the world a more interesting place to live.

Transformers Rescue Bots - Mindless

Littlest Pet Show - Slightly clever, but uninspired

Jake and the Never Land Pirates - Unoffensive, but ultimately pointless

Planet 51 - Terrible

I'm putting extra effort into finding a full-time gig as my freelance work has drief up for the time being, so keeping up with the writing side of this feels like a hindrance relative to applying for things, etc.

In the course of my job hunt, I found out that this morning my old game studio is having a release event for the last game I worked on there, Making History: The Great War (It's on Steam, look it up). I was thinking about going to show my support, but I decided against it.

In the last few weeks, I've become increasingly isolated and increasingly depressed. I haven't been writing anything because I haven't felt motivated to say anything. I miss Boston. I miss human contact. I don't want the life I have and I have no idea how to even begin finding a life I want.

My ankle remains fucked up. It's been months now when this problem usually only lasts a few days. It's near constant pain. When the pain subsides, a few steps and it comes back.

I have no insurance. The cheapest plan available is over $180 a month and the deductible is something like $7,000. So, until I can get a full-time job with benefits (which seems nearly impossible), I have to suffer the pain and just do what I can to stay off it.

I'm bowing out of the one night a week I actually spent time with people because they play weird games designed to make you feel sad. I've tried over the last few months, but I just can't get into the headspace where I care about pretend people enough that it's a motivating factor in gameplay.

I'm running out of games to play and movies to watch. Without money, I lack the agency to find new distractions. I'm a prisoner here. I'm a prisoner with nothing left but these goddamn cartoons.

I've burnt through all the good cartoons. Apparently, throughout time, there have only been less than 200 good cartoons. That is the result of this experiment, this torture I've inflicted upon myself.

For the last few days, I've been watching unremarkable Hanna-Barbera stuff.

Day 204: Snagglepuss - A pink, flamboyant mountain lion.

Day 205: Snorks - Water Smurfs.

Day 206: Gravedale High - Rick Moranis and a bunch of generic monsters.

Another day, another poke around Netflix to see if there are any 'toons I haven't watched yet. Found one called Horrid Henry. Looked like a cute enough kids thing, art style is very Curious George. Plus, it's British which is always kinda interesting.

According to Wikipedia, this is a successful children's book property and the show is one of the most successful series on CITV. It's basically a show starring Angelica from Rugrats, but as an 8 year-old boy.

This kid is a total piece of shit that makes everyone around him miserable. He's basically everything I hate about children. I don't know what the cultural difference is that makes this acceptable in the U.K., but Henry is an unlikable little shite with no redeeming qualities that I can tell. He seems to learn no lessons and just rebel for the sake of rebellion.

I thought I'd done Venture Bros. already, but I can't find it in the archives so I guess not. The abruptly-announced and poorly-advertised 1-hour special was Monday night and it was incredible.

Venture Brothers is a show that reinvents itself and shifts around character dynamics as part of the core of it's storytelling. Every time they do a big event episode, it uses every corner of the bizarre universe they've been building to make it seem as if all roads have led to this moment. They did what the writers of LOST never could, interestingly hint at the meaning behind different things and ultimately pay them off time and time again.

The backbone of the show is nerdy pop culture satire. The barrier to entry for truly appreciating everything the show has to offer is a lifetime spent watching cartoons and reading comic books. It started as a cynical look at Johnny Quest if Johnny grew up a child star in the shadow of his father.

Rusty, as a kid, bought into the adventures in super-science more than anyone. As an adult, Doc Venture is over it and doesn't bat an eye at anything. He's a failure, a cheat, and addicted to pills. His sons are a bit Hardy Boys with a splash of Scooby Doo and his bodyguard is a much more intense version of Race Bannon that somehow turned into a doorway to G.I. Joe/classic Nick Fury/S.H.I.E.L.D. spy stuff.

Nearly every character in the series tells or is caught up in someone else's lie. Either about who they are, what they can do, or what they've done. Even Byron Orpheus, often the show's moral compass, lies to his daughter about her bedroom closet being a portal to an otherworldly plane of horror.

I absolutely adore this show, but it's kinda hard to suggest to those who aren't already fans. The first season is a little rough and homemade and you have to at least know Johnny Quest, which has all but disappeared from the culture. Plus, what it's become is so drastically different than what it used to be, it's hard to give anecdotes as to why the show is so great.

For example: Why is the character Billy so great? Well, he starts out as kindofa fan of Rusty, but he also lives in a trailer with this albino guy Rusty played D&D with in college. His time as an underground quiz master left him missing a hand and eye, which ultimately got him recruited by a covert government special ops division. They had him infiltrate a university so they could see what a professor with tiny arms and legs was up to. Oh, and he has an arch nemesis that is a rich nerd who owns obscure 70s movie props. Plus, three undead businessmen gave him a medical license so that he could transplant the heart of a talking homosexual gorilla into an 8-ft tall gangster.

Sounds insanely convoluted, and is, but totally par for anyone that watches the show. Every character is somehow connected to every other character (of which there are many) in numerous, weird ways that not all are even aware of. Everyone is shrouded in secrets, lies, layers of identities known and unknown.

But the best thing about this show is how nonchalant everything is. Pretty much every trespass is ultimately forgiven with a shrug.

Well, that's not true. The Monarch will never forgive Doc Venture for whatever it is he did. Something in college? It doesn't even matter.

For MLK day, I watched the MLK episode of The Boondocks where the show paints a world where Martin Luther King fell into a coma instead of dying in 1968. He comes out of it and is immediately disappointed in his race, called a hater and ultimately so disgusted with America that he leaves. It was kinda troubling to watch and should have been a profound cultural wake-up call, but the show never really made that much noise.

I've been holding off on writing about Gravity Falls for a while. I'm not sure why, other than the fact that I love it. I want to, like, do it justice... whatever that means. Since discovering it this past fall, I've watched every episode and done everything in my power to introduce it to my friends.

I might not have anything profound to say about it, but it's day 200. Round numbers are significant.

For whatever reason, they played the 4 most recent episodes in a block on Disney XD yesterday afternoon and I couldn't tear myself away. This is, by far, the best children's cartoon on TV right now.

At this point, I've watched 200 different cartoons. Many of which are currently in production. I'd say there are basically four age ranges of cartoon: Preschooler, little kid, older kid, adult.

Maybe at Day 200, I'll throw out my current top 3 for each age range.

Preschooler:

Sarah and Duck

Peppa Pig

Doc McStuffins

Little Kid:

Gravity Falls

Star Wars Rebels

Stephen Universe

Older Kid:

Adventure Time

Regular Show

Korra (Technically not on TV, but it was when I started my blog)

Adult:

Rick and Morty

Venture Bros.

Bob's Burgers

It's unfortunate how easy these lists were to make. There just isn't much good animation on right now. The comic book shows are watered-down and pointless. The adult 'toons have worn out their welcomes. The preschooler shows are patronizing and the various kid shows are all just braindead lights and colors for dumb kids.

I didn't even want to put Stephen Universe on the list because it's so precious and one-note. Korra technically didn't even qualify because it ended up online and has since ended. The only struggle was whether Archer or Bob's Burgers should get the #3 adult slot.

But goddamn, Gravity Falls is so good. It's clever, subversive, heartfelt, sarcastic and just a little bit twisted. Stan is downright abusive at times to his twin great grandchildren that have been unceremoniously shipped to his odd gift shop to help out for the summer.

It's got this brilliant X-Files for kids vibe. There are monster of the week episodes and main mythology arc episodes where Dipper is trying to uncover the author of a mysterious journal that holds the clues to the secrets of Gravity Falls. But everything is so low-stakes, the mysteries are just kinda fun, even though they flat-out reference characters that have died.

It frequently references 80s and 90s stuff, almost like Regular Show. It's kinda for kids, but I think the maximum appreciation for this show is had by 30 year-olds.

Haven't been keeping up with the writing, but the watching has occurred. None of these really sparked anything I wanted to say, so I just kept forgetting to write anything.

The Disney reboot of Doug was meh. Had some interesting tweaks to the situations of the show, but kinda felt like a copy of a copy. Not good, but not bad enough to be noteworthy.

Penguins of Madagascar can occasionally be kinda charming, but they're one-note B story characters from a movie series that wasn't even that good. One or two episodes of this show is mildly enjoyable, anything after that is beating a dead horse.

I woke up a bit early yesterday and instinctively turned on the TV for some ambient noise to go back to sleep to, which was on Cartoon Network.

It was part way through an old Merry Melodies Peppe Le Pew 'toon, but nothing I recognized at first glance.

First, I saw the bedraggled form of the cat Le Pew is always trying to have sex with after some unfortunate run-in with white paint. Heart beating out of her chest, hair matted, eyes hungry.

Then, the form of Le Pew, cast in an eerie, spectral shade of blue as if a ghost. Calling out for the object of his affections, but clearly a specter of some sort. Was he haunting her? Was she some type of pet cemetery nightmare? What the hell was happening?

Suddenly a crash. Pepe looks worried. The camera pans and we see the nightmarish figure of a clearly undead cat, tossing a key menacingly and giving out a hacking, wet cough.

Pepe looks on in terror, unsure how to proceed. His eyes are filled with sadness, regret and panic. Was this his end? Was this an agent of karma, finally sent to end him for his wicked ways?

After a moment, his fate truly sinks in and his eyes give away the madness that has taken over. This is the end. The only thing left to do is run.

The chase begins in earnest, Pepe in a panicked dash and the cat in a menacing and bizarre trot.

This is when I fell back asleep, confused and terrified. I woke up an hour or so later not knowing if this vision of horror was real or just a strange dream.

I've been laid up with an injured ankle for the last few days. I'm in a terrible mood and just watched cartoons I could pull up on Netflix.

Total Drama Island was just dumb.

For the last few days, watching the evolution of Adam Reed's stuff as it led to Archer made me want to check out some of Loren Bouchard's stuff as it evolved into Bob's Burgers. I'd already done Dr. Katz and Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil, so I popped in my Home Movies DVDs. Wanting to hear some more of the hilariousness that is H. Jon Benjamin helped, too.

One of my favorite holdovers between Home Movies and Bob's Burgers is the weird, often disturbing pair of children that are a little dumb and make everyone uncomfortable. In Home Movies, it's Walter and Perry, in Bob's Burger's it's Andy and Ollie.

Home Movies was so good, it's hard to believe it was cancelled after only 5 episodes. Watching it again, it's got a pretty similar humor to Bob's Burgers. I guess the big thing it lacks is a central adult character to be the focus for a show that is essentially for adults, even though it's primarily about kids being very kid-like.

They used a writing technique called retroscripting, which I think was also used in Lucy, Dr. Katz and Bob's Burgers. This is when the plot is outlined but left largely open for improvisation. It gives everything a looser feel, but also makes it seem more real. I think it also opens up the performers and gives the characters significantly more life than in other animated series.

If you haven't seen this show, you're missing out. It's very fun.

Home Movies has one of the best endings for a series I've ever seen. He breaks his camera, effectively ending his ability to make home movies, and he moves on. It's not a sad moment, really. Brandon will be okay, he's a kid. It's sweet and kinda uplifting.

Have been pretty out of it the last two days physically and emotionally. Just went ahead and kept binging on the works of Adam Reed after doing Archer the other day.

Last night was the Season 6 premiere of Archer. Season 5 got a little weird, abandoning the show's usual espionage angle to pursue a drug cartel storyline and country music thing that all got a bit hard to follow.

They're no longer ISIS, which is good given the real-life terror organization that started using that name last year. They're now CIA freelancers, which basically means they're back to the old routine. Not an epic season opener, felt like they were easing into things after the bizarre last season.

Archer as a cartoon has an interesting pedigree. It's become a fairly mainstream primetime hit, yet it has some really obscure roots that are all clearly visible in the writing and animation.

The show's creator, Adam Reed started as a writer for Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. He wrote insane things and learned to tell a lot of story with not much animation. Those talents were further refined when he went to Sealab 2021, where he started voice-acting as Doctor Virjay and a few other characters.

Then came Frisky Dingo. A show that few people understood, but those that did, loved. There is so much tonal overlap between Frisky Dingo and Archer, yet I'd wager that 80% of Archer fans wouldn't dig Frisky Dingo. It's just a shade too crazy and unrelateable.

Archer doesn't feel at all formulaic, but it does have a number of repeated elements that are used to great effect, most of which are eccentricities of Sterling Archer he leans on to annoy everyone around him:

The shouting of names followed by "WHAT?"

Making sure Lana is paying attention when he shouts "Danger Zone"

Saying "Phrasing" when anything vaguely suggestive is said

Archer, as a character, is a dick yet somehow always endearing. He's always incredibly self-aware and troubled by some of the things he does. Textbook chaotic good.

The voice cast is brilliant and headed by Girl on Guy podcaster and comedian Aisha Tyler, Bob of Bob's Burgers H. Jon Benjamin, and Jessica Walter, who is basically just playing the same character she played in Arrested Development. They're supported by the always hilarious Judy Greer, also of Arrested Development fame and Chris Parnell who also plays the dad on Rick and Morty.

Watched some rando animated series on Hulu last night called The Dating Guy. Embarrassingly bad. The art style had zero personality, the characters were less than one-dimensional, and the writing was insanely pedestrian.