Tag: cartoon

195 – That One Amazing Movie

It isn’t.

K. Thor Jensen makes a triumphant return to the show to help Jen and Tim make sense of a nice young man’s three-hour-long passion project, That One Amazing Movie!

Get this episode and 100+ bonus episodes from our back catalog and access to our Discord for just $5/month on Patreon!

See the movie for free with ads on Crackle, or rent or even buy it on Amazon!

Watch Deception on Demand, a short documentary laying out several grievances against Adler &Associates Entertainment, the entity which distributed That One Amazing Movie.

“The true story of how the grifters and con artists from Adler & Associates Entertainment hired O.J. Simpson’s lawyers, and spent a small fortune, futilely trying to intimidate, harass and rip-off a very determined filmmaker. “

Hear Thor talk about Sass Girls X, the novel (!) from the auteur who brought us That One Amazing Movie, on the I Don’t Even Own a TV podcast.

Listen to Thor’s first appearance on our show, to discuss a movie just as baffling as the one we talked about in this episode, Wonder Boy. 

193 – Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

BREAKING: new evidence for the historical Great Pumpkin

Tim and Jen enlist the help of Bitter Karella to wade through the 22 minutes of treacle that is the forgotten faux-Peanuts special, Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus.

Get this episode and over 90 bonus episodes from our back catalog for just $5/month on Patreon!

See this slab of gelatinous treacle for yourself at the Internet Archive. 

William Conant Church, brother of Francis Church, did indeed help found the NRA in 1871, in an effort to improve marksmanship amongst the broader American militia. He and brother Francis co-founded several news publications, including the New York Sun, and he also co-founded the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Additionally, Frank Church was not the volcel depicted in the Yes, Virginia special— he was married to a woman named Elizabeth Wickham. In spite of Tim’s joshing, it appears that Church did not have a severe yet shapely assistant who browbeat him into publishing the editorial addressed to Virginia O’Hanlon. The O’Hanlon letter was passed on by Edward Page Mitchell, the real-life editor-in-chief of the Sun.

Mike alluded to the “Season’s Greetings” meme drawn from Douglas Dixon’s Man After Man, a kind of speculative art book about possible evolutions of Homo sapiens. If you want to see more of the weird art, the book is free to browse at the Internet Archive. 

Finally, if you want to pretend that it’s 1974 again and you’re spinning some 45s, you can hear the theme song for the special sung by a piercing li’l Jimmy Osmond.

Want more weird cartoons? Check out Tim & Jen’s riff on the animated short “Eveready Harton” from 1975’s Self Service Girls, or one of our other episodes on trauma-inducing animation.

182 – Goat Story: The Old Prague Legends

A grotesque woman produces a cabbage from her massive cleavage while a goat looks on
Only in Prague!

Jen enlists show stalwart Bitter Karella to help offend nearly every single person in the Czech Republic by providing an honest review of Goat Story: The Old Prague Legends.

For just $5 a month, hear it and over 80 more episodes on our Patreon!

See the intro for the show Jen and Karella saw in Switzerland, Kommissar Rex. That’s what I call a good friend!

If you would like to see the “Roy Orbison in clingfilm” stories for yourself, you can do so here, but keep in mind that the site owner has “ceased answering mail” because of “weirdos.” However, the film and television rights to his long-awaited Roy Orbison in clingfilm novel are still up for grabs!

Hear our Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure episode, also featuring Bitter Karella!

157 – Speed Racer

Emile Hirsch as Speed Racer emerges from the Mach 5 in a candy-colored still from the 2008 film

Jen and Tim welcome Speed Racer evangelist Paul Jay to talk about, uh, the 2008 flop Speed Racer.

Over at culture blog The Sundae, Dean Buckley makes a case against Speed Racer as “art film” and for the Wachowskis as purveryors of schlock (in a positive way). Agree or disagree, it’s a thoughtful piece.

The Daily Beast has details of Emile Hirsch’s attack on a Paramount executive at a Sundance party, although the headline’s assertion that he “starred” in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a slight exaggeration (he had a small part as man-about-town hairdresser and murder victim Jay Sebring).

The documentary Riding Balls of Fire: Group B, The Wildest Years of Rallying presents a nice overview of that brief era of rally car racing, plus it’s free on Tubi!

Paul guested on the show many moons ago to talk about The Paul Lynde Halloween Special. Listen to that episode here!

110 – Cool World

Cool World is not cool. Emma Bowers (@hyenasandgin) returns to commiserate with Tim and Jen about a very bad animated feature. Turns out this movie did significant psychological damage to young Tim.

Watch Emma’s Full Metal Alchemist video!

BAWWWWW!

Compare and contrast: this interview with Ralph Bakshi, and this one with writer Michael Grais. Bakshi claims malfeasance from producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. (to the point of violence). Grais calls Bakshi a liar, essentially. What’s the real story? Who knows?

The Tex Avery doc Tim alluded to is called Tex Avery, the King of Cartoons.

Bakshi puts in this pissing stuff, and toilet stuff. I didn’t like that sex attitude in it very much. It’s like real repressed horniness; he’s kind of letting it out compulsively.

R. Crumb on Ralph Bakshi and the Fritz the Cat feature film

If we haven’t dissuaded you, you can watch Ralph Bakshi’s most recent animated work, The Last Days of Coney Island, on YouTube.

For more animated shite, listen to our episode on Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure!

054 – Immortel, ad vitam

Egyptian gods in Immortel, ad vitem (2004)

Niel Jacoby (@fuckinalpamare on Twitter) joins us to ask: just what the hell is Immortel, ad vitam? It appears to be an incomprehensible dystopian flick based on an incomprehensible graphic novel. We spend a lot of time mocking the movie’s incredibly cavalier attitude towards sexual assault.

Join our Patreon and get access to more than 50 bonus episodes!

The film is based on a graphic novel by Enki Bilal. Remarkably, Bilal was allowed to direct the film in spite of having only one feature and a couple of shorts under his belt.

Along with films like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Sin City, Immortel, ad Vitam was part of a new wave of “digital backlot” movies. This refers to movies made entirely in a green screen environment.

We highly recommend Niel’s very funny podcast (and maybe the only one about Timothy Spall), Spall Talk!

For some much better big-budget sci-fi, try our episode on Event Horizon.

051 – Eek! The Cat with Bill Kopp

Bill Kopp, animator, writer and voice actor, displays an animation cell
Bill Kopp

Tim and Jen are very excited to have animator, voice actor, and writer Bill Kopp on the show to discuss his career, especially the beloved-but-now-scarce Fox Kids show Eek! the Cat. Sorry we had to record Bill on Edison cylinder lol

Hear the full episode at our Patreon!

For another creator interview, listen to our episode with Dutch director Ate de Jong.

031 – Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure

Jen welcomes Mike Rosen to discuss a traumatic event from his childhood: Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure! In other words, an ill-fated animated feature directed by Richard Williams.

The Animator’s Survival Kit website is a fine tribute to Williams, an undisputed master of the animation. This guide for the aspiring animator is possibly his greatest legacy.

Here’s the screencap Jen mentions in the episode. Make of it what you will.

Babette the Doll from Raggedy Ann and Andy

For more of Mike, listen to our Nothing But Trouble episode!

025 – Wonder Boy

Wonder Boy (2010) title screen, with writer credit for Robin Morningstar

Jen and Tim are joined by writer K. Thor Jensen to discuss a true example of an outsider movie, Wonder Boy. It turns out that Uwe Boll is only the second worst video-game-based film director currently living.

K. Thor Jensen’s article on Wonder Boy, which includes a link to the…well, it’s barely a movie: Wonder Boy is the Most Bizarre Video Game Movie Ever Made

Update: As of 2021, the movie has disappeared from YouTube and other video upload sites. But in 2011 someone put it on DVD, we assume the creators.

For more internet madness, listen to our episode on weird algorithm-generated YouTube videos!