I know I shouldn't write anymore album reviews for the Staff, but I can't help myself.

People have to know about Yeezus. There's something quite magical about the record.

Yes, it's just Yeezy channeling the Death Grips and filtering it through the aesthetic of The College Dropout, but it feels like there's something more. Like, he's trying to say something through his abnormally barbed words and paranoid ramblings. It feels like, in many ways, the darker spiritual successor to that collaboration album he did with Jay-Z a couple of years back - same minimalist beats, same negative depiction of the stereotypical black lifestyle, same distancing-himself-from-the-wide-sound-of-My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, etc.

Look around you - it's in the promotion. Kanye dropped no singles for Yeezus - just performance art-esque video clips of him interspliced with barking dogs and price tags to the tune of "New Slaves" and "I Am a God." He appeared on Saturday Night Live and performed in front of a slideshow of price tags and barking dogs, screaming madly about being ostracized for trying to avoid the stereotype. Hell, there's no front cover to Yeezus - very similar to System of a Down's Steal This Album in concept. A rap album that showcases how bad making rap into a commodity is ends up borrowing ideas from a metal album that showcases how bad making anything into a commodity is.

The musical content on the record is as follows: it basically changes up the guy's style by minimalizing his orchestral art-rap sound he seemingly perfected with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. While his prior albums were bombast and light in a sense, Yeezus is the hangover to the power trip Kanye experiences on MBDTF. The music matches the revelations - discordant beats laid over subtle samples (sometimes, outright using a sample for more than a minute as evidenced on the outro to "New Slaves"); keyboards whirring, playing unnatural sounds in a manner not seen since Pere Ubu's early years; and a ton of bass. And yet, there are tracks that Kanye strips down the beats even further - "Blood on the Leaves" is, for all intents and purposes, a Nina Simone vocal sample played over some bass and quiet keyboards; a majority of "New Slaves" is a synth line that adds tension to Kanye's desperate lyrics about trying to destroy his limelight; and "Black Skinhead" is a a drum beat with the occasional distorted guitar.

Why this minimalism works is similar to why minimalism was created: to make people aware that true music isn't just flowery orchestras devoted to expanding your mind and massive vocal overlays. Music can be a man singing over a bass line - music can be a man rapping over the occasional paradiddle. Music has no universal standard - it's everywhere. Speaking of the omnipresence of music, Kanye channels that with his continuing use of obscure samples, ranging from soul songs nobody's heard of to Chicago house music to Wendy Carlos-era synthesizer experimentation to Hungarian progressive rock. Occasionally, he'll dust out a well-known sample - i.e. Nina Simone's disturbing rendition of "Strange Fruit" - but he'll use the sample in ways nobody will expect. Rather than sampling the backing band on the Simone performance, he instead makes a mantra out of her "blood on the leaves" recitation and creates a nightmarish atmosphere that matches the ones found on other songs.

Regardless of its massive praise, Yeezus is still a flawed album. Kanye's still spitting out clumsy lyrics about how he wants to be rich while criticizing consumer culture and modern rap. Chief Keef ruins the aesthetic of "Hold My Liquor" mainly because of his persona: a party-hard musician that goes against Kanye's manifesto to a T. "Bound 2," while one of Kanye's best tracks, doesn't work as well as a closer. "On Sight" should've been longer. Kanye should've stuck to the concept of the first half - the minimalist beats - before going into the industrial-meets-trap-meets-noise second half. I could go on forever.

However, rather than the mixtape of songs people paint the album as, Yeezus works as a concept album about the pressures of fame and its relentless hypocrisy as one tries to compromise individuality with a public perception of themselves. Kanye confronts you with his ego - he has grown to embrace it. He proves Trey Parker and Matt Stone very right - that he would become something more than just a rapper that thinks about his image too much. And yet, he proves them wrong - they thought he would melt away like all the pop stars they have lampooned. Look at the celebrities that have come and gone - they're just flashes in the pan. They've outgrown their societal usefulness. And yet, Kanye has not jumped in the ocean and tried to hide. He's become even more popular since then. He's more than just a vapid pop star who makes popular rap albums. He's become so controlling that, as mentioned earlier in how he tried to promote the record, he's not pursuing conventional outlets or artists to help him push Yeezus, He shows his hypocrisy quite clearly, as also mentioned earlier, while being proud of it. Kanye is not ashamed.

Kanye wants the listener to confront the ideal with the real thing on Yeezus. It makes the listener uncomfortable - Kanye being comfortable with "being a god" and screaming to a "damn French restaurant" for his "damn croissants" before talking about how he wants to escape fame and its consequences. You have to face the hypocrisy head on - you have to accept that you're a hypocrite in the way Kanye is. You say you aren't - some of your ideals don't mesh with the real thing. You have two faces - public and private. You need to accept yourself as you are.

This is the same thing MC Ride wants listeners of Death Grips to understand. One second, he's praising his own violence. The other, he's decrying other peoples' violence. This double standard is everywhere. It's all over religious discussions. It's in law enforcement. It's in journalism. It's even in fame. Even fame has two sides. Everything has duality - we can be sure of that. However, in the end, who fucking knows? What is real? Which is the ideal? Are we applying the ideal to everybody? Did we create this egomaniac of a monster? Are we responsible for the blossoming of pain within celebrity culture? Did we give rise to tabloid journalism because we want to know everything about celebrities? According to Kanye, yes. And we should learn to accept it as opposed to denying it. If we deny it, history will repeat itself however it wants - and it could be worse the next time.

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Often there are questions in life that can be answered by embarking on a journey. It could be one of one's self, it could be a road trip where you encounter alien women or it could just be surfing the net constantly until the answer pops up by pressing "I'm feeling lucky" on Google. This is sort of all three, because this a question that has challenged many a mind. Sure, many have had difficulty figuring out the meaning of our existence, but their search of spirituality being able to provide meaning whilst also analyzing the known universes' wonders is somewhat pleasant, even if one comes to a grim conclusion. Mainly because it doesn't involve your mind feeling as though it's about to explode with the mere thought of realizing such an idea is plausible let alone delving deeper to understand it. I've worked with many good friends who once they've pondered this question, they've gone without sleep, without food and on the extreme cases, without water, wishing that something would come out and give them a sign that they would be graced with an answer, or at the very least a clue. Some have gone off the deep end, killing others and themselves, turning into twitching trainwrecks and cutting themselves to write messages of help with their own blood so that their adamant obsession with such a riddle will be cured. Nevertheless, I feel like I can take on this task because I have what remains of my fallen comrades and I am desensitized enough to take up such a mind-shattering perplexfest-of-a-question as this one. It won't be easy, but I don't have much of a choice on the matter, because my mind will not cease to dawn on the idea. So I sat down, looked at myself on the reflection of the computer and said:

How did Kevin James get a career?

First, before you go any further, don't repeat the phrase too much. This has been known to lead to spontaneous combustion, so make sure you're near any body of water if you're going to think about it. Even if you don't know who this man is, it's dangerous to say it. Still, I believe that I should inform you about who he is and show you his career growth to showcase why it would be asinine for one to think that he'd have one. Kevin James or as he's originally known as, Kevin George Knipfing, is a New York loveable lummox of a man who started his "career" as a comedian. A stand up comedian no less. Now, as is typical of stand up comedians, you're supposed to stand up in front of an audience and tell jokes to them in the hopes that you hear a wave of laughter coming towards you. That's the sign you're doing something right in the business. With Kevin James, you see some of his act and you think to yourself, "Hmm...I don't really see why I should be laughing". He's not downright grating mind you, at least not yet. As a comedian, he's more like a wannabe Chris Farley, both in the style and appearance, but even that's being a bit generous. Take a look at one of his stand up bits. You see he has a sense of energy resonating with him, but his content seems to be mixed in direction. The delivery feels unfocused and as if he's trying to be someone else. Not only that, but if you listen to the audience, they sound like they're humoring him more than genuinely laughing at his jokes.



If he continued to try in the field and actually grew to be more resonant in the comedy industry, maybe it would have sufficed that he would have what he has now. But he moreso seemed to jump into trying to do something on TV. That something being cameo in a few episodes Everybody Loves Raymond as Kevin and as a "character" named Doug Heffernan. Here we start to see why asking yourself "how did Kevin James get a career" is volatile. See, in the history of sitcoms, there's one that people often consider to be the pinnacle of below-mediocrity, and that is Everybody Loves Raymond. Why? Is it because it uses the age-old "idiot/ugly/fat guy gets smoking hot girl" trope? Is it because the characters are generally unlikeable? Perhaps it's because the only seemingly entertaining actor in the show is sidelined to being a bootlicking ball of envy? Well aside from all of them it's because the show lacks anything funny at all and abused the canned laughter tactic terribly much before the times of Big Bang Theory. It also seemed to kill the careers of the main cast, including the lead character, who decided to sell his soul to Blue Sky Studios so that his mediocrity could be entirely immortalized in ice. To imagine that Kevin James would be in such a production and still be a name that we'd know today is much more than a mere miracle. It's a conspiracy. For you see, instead of his career going nowhere and him perhaps trying to improve his standup to become credibly entertaining, he got a vague spin-off to that show called The King Of Queens. And by vague spinoff I mean that Doug Heffernan was in two episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond and he's apparently the lead in The King Of Queens.

Maybe I'm being harsh here, after all, when one makes the leap from stand up to sitcom, perhaps they do better. Jerry Seinfeld is great in standup, but in his eponymous show, he made comedy gold. Kevin James could possibly offer the same, can't he? I mean, he has Jerry Stiller, one of the actors in the Seinfeld show in his cast. Well, I'm sorry to report that The King Of Queens was nothing more than another "fat-husband-hot-wife" sitcom. I don't use this term to mean that all sitcoms that have a fat husband and an attractive wife turn out to be nothing more than lazy, terrible writing. I wouldn't even go as far to say that most of them do so. As much as it pains me to admit this, According To Jim had its fair share of amusing moments. It's just that there's a select amount of them (oddly enough one of them being According To Jim) that exemplify the terrible aspects of this set-up, and King Of Queens shows it in its most boring and lackluster of ways. Kevin James plays as a manchild for most of the time, and the wife is probably dealing with him more as a child than an actual partner, which makes the feeling of romance very contrived and incredibly wrong. That sliver of the possible comedic appeal he could have had as a stand up is thrown away at the very sight of this show. If his career died after the show, that would have been fine. Yes, he still had a semblance of a career, but it's short lived. There's many short fuse careers in entertainment. Unfortunately, he got into films.

His early career in films is nothing to really glimmer at, but once I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry hit the scene, there was something glaringly wrong about his rising star. In that, it rose alongside Adam Sandler at the time when he started to throw away any semblance of talent he harbored in exchange for killing brain cells and aspiring talents. Kevin James not only became worse with his comedy, but he also stooped down to the levels on Sandler (who by the way, basically ruined the original script of the film with his brand of "humor", so much to the point that one of the writers almost wanted to Alan Smithee his way out of the production). Much to the chagrin of audiences with sensible tastes in entertainment, this actually topped #1 in the box office and got some contrarian critics to call it a modern classic and hold it up to Brokeback Mountain. Yes, a movie with more gay stereotypes than an episode of Will and Grace and a yellowface Rob Schneider is being considered on par with Brokeback Mountain. What's worse is that Kevin James continued to live in films, with the so-so You Don't Mess With The Zohan, the "all-hope-is-lost" Paul Blart: Mall Cop, the homicide of comedy known as Grown Ups and Grown Ups 2, and his magnum opus of Zookeeper, where more of the comedy came out of people doing loops of the trailer instead of the film actually being funny.



So, if we were to look at this sanely, we'd see that his quality throughout his career has been abysmal and it should have been detached a long, long time ago. Yet it still lives, as if some sort of dark magic is keeping it alive. The question that I pose still remains unanswered, how did he get a career? If one considered how his career has maintained itself in the latter years (aka, right now), we'd be privy to say that Sandler is the one that has supported his trainwreck. It's not an absurd conclusion to come up with as Sandler has made maintaining on the entertainment scene by doing nothing but pure garbage seem like a fine art and most of James's "successes" in film do have Sandler sewn in through one means over the other. I don't think that's really what occurring here, because if that's the case, I'd have to believe that all the other imbeciles that were in Grown Ups are under the debt of Sandler as well, and they seem to be fairing fine. Besides, why would Sandler focus his energy on trying to ruin something that was never substantial enough to be ruined? With Dana Carvey, there was a funny beating heart inside of him that he could rip out and swallow. Kevin James has a beating heart, but it doesn't glow with the shine of comedy that is ripe for the massacring. It's more trying desperately to continue working even though it just wants to stop so that it no longer has to deal with the jokes that harbor in his talentless vessel of a body. In which case, what could be the cause of his success?

I recently searched both Kevin and James on Google as I was told to by one of my friends in the nuthouse. As I looked around, I found both names belonged to saints. Not only that, but both these saints were big with the concept of asceticism. Basically this meant that they wouldn't have any sexual activity or drink alcohol as they embark on a quest to find inner peace through spirituality. St. Kevin seemed to be the more radical version of this as in a folk song, he's claimed to have drowned a woman that was coming on to him, although that could just be the Irish trying to make another shanty for a night out at the pub. He was also known to live as a hermit, living amongst nature, sometimes sleeping on rocks and having little to eat, slowly gaining followers. St. James, on the other hand, was called James The Just and was one of the people that saw the risen Christ and was important to the Christians in Jerusalem. At first, this meant absolutely nothing to me, when I associated it to Kevin James. Both of these saints were devout in their religion (as any saint should be), and they have standards. Kevin James is nothing short of the antithesis of this. As I looked, I couldn't find anything else that could connect. I tried to tie Kevin Kline with James James, but there was no way that Otto West in A Fish Called Wanda could have anything to do with the man who wrote the Welsh national anthem. The only one that made the most sense was this connection, and even then, I found myself doubting the correlation.



Weeks went by where the only thing I'd eat was cardboard and invisible steak dinners served by my rabbit friend named Harvey, and I felt that soon I would be joining my friends in the looney bin. It was only until I slept for the first time in 20 days that it came to me in a dream. All I saw was that good-for-nothing hack praying in front of an Indian priest with a ying yang necklace. It was there that it came to me like a ton of bricks, which is pretty much how I felt after I woke up from that dream. As I took two full containers worth of Advil, I saw why Kevin James got lucky and won the lottery of being able to make money with no effort at all and getting a smoking gal to boot. Asceticism relies that a person undergoes certain conditions to achieve enlightenment and be whole in mind, body and soul. This is related to Buddhism and Hinduism. Both of these religions believe in the idea of karma; you do good, you receive good in return. It's very evident that if both did enough to be considered saints, they would obtain some sort of reward in return. Considering that both of these saints had to go through hardships, with Kevin having to overly-minimize his lifestyle and restrain from any sexual desire, and James having to be in charge of the Christians and the council in Jerusalem of all places, it would be expected that their reward should be ultimate enlightenment and standing alongside God to fully soak in the answer to all of the mysteries in the universe. In Hinduism though, the belief is that when one dies, they are reincarnated, and connecting itself with karma, if they do good, they are reincarnated as something better. So therefore their lifestyle that is much less demanding and their rewards are given to them more easily. What more could exemplify that as none other than Kevin James?!

If we truly think about it, his comedy has always been light-hearted and he's always had that sensibility of innocence and purity to him, much like the saints have. Sure, he participates in crass comedies and he's incredibly childish, but in truth, no matter how hate-filled someone makes a hyperbole directed to Kevin James, his bad movies have really never harmed anyone. In its own way, Zookeeper shows the principles of St. Kevin as he befriends the animals that are around him. St. Kevin is also redeemed for his celibacy and fasting by being able to become a glutton and getting it on with Steffiana de la Cruz enough to have three kids. Where does St. James come in to the mix? Well, if you watch Barnyard, you'll find that it shows the story of a cow (voiced by Kevin James, no doubt) eventually accepting responsibility and leading the animals in a barn after his father died. Not only does this sound like it might be Animal Farm for kids mixed with a bit of The Lion King, but it alludes to how St. James eventually became a bishop and gained prominence in the Christian religion. Only in St. James's case, it didn't involve coyotes or actors feeling ashamed after being in such a production. Where as St. James had to work hard to lead people that followed his religion properly and make critical decisions that would either serve him well or doom him forever, Kevin James doesn't have to worry about the implications of his choices as they seem to not have any setbacks to them at all. So the next time you find yourself cursing the name of Kevin James and finding yourself frustrated that he has a career, remember...in his past lives, he was a saint. And they need a reward for all the troubles they've had to endure.

Finally, a film by Neill Blomkamp that I can approve of!

I really didn't understand how District 9 was so popular. While it was an effective allegory on the dehumanization of apartheid and institutionalized racism, it just felt a little too novice for its own good. Neill's style, while codified by that time, didn't really match the high-concept mixture of social commentary and action-thriller-body horror-black comedy that the script demanded. The aliens weren't necessarily the most imaginative - just typical ones with H.R. Giger bodies and an abstract language. And to top it off, the massive amount of praise that the film got - going as far as getting nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture - drew me away from the film. To me, it was just a guy's first feature film - nobody's going to get it right on their first try. Rarely do they ever get it right (i.e. Easy Rider was Dennis Hopper's first film as director), but most of the time, first films are usually misfires or general Hollywood shlock.

This is why Elysium gets it right. By managing to mix his social commentary/comedy/body horror amalgamation correctly to blend in with his visual aesthetic and by making the film a little more down to Earth, the film comes across as District 9 done right. This is how I wanted 2009's favorite non-James Cameron-related film to feel like - a gritty action thriller with much-needed humanist messages, all done by a man who obviously cares about the craft. Of course there's going to be hype aversion for this - "it's not District 9. How can it match with District 9?" - but as its own product, it stands leagues above the rest of what Hollywood's putting out right now. And to be fair, it's a massively unique film - a rarity in this day and age where even indie films are substandard remakes. Not to say that it has its faults - again, Neill is still new to this Hollywood thing - but its positives outweigh its negatives this time.

Max DeCosta (Matt "Elliott Smith-obsessed Math Genius" Damon) is, or was, a thief working for Armadyne, a robotics company that makes robot cops for the wealthy satellite Elysium. Since he's a con, he can't go into Elysium - and besides, it's not like he can anyway if he were clean. Because the wealthy are so obsessed with keeping their life as pure as it can be, they don't allow anyone residing on Earth to even visit the place or use their popular medical pods. This, in turn, spawns a highly illegal smuggling service for anybody who has enough money to go to the space station. As made very clear, it's very risky - most people die during these missions while others (including children) end up in jail. The reason why this is all happening: Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) wants to preserve the beauty of Elysium by any means necessary, including using a psychotic sleeper agent by the name of Kruger (Sharlto Copley). This in turn makes the government of Elysium hate her. A lot.

One day, Max gets into an industrial accident where he gets a lethal dose of radiation that gives him only five days to live. After witnessing the CEO of Armadyne indiscriminately fire him, Max gets pissed. Sick, he goes to the leader of the smuggling service, Spider (Wagner Moura), who gives him a highly risky job: extract an Elysium citizen's brain data ala Johnny Mnemonic and sell it to him. Seeing this as a good time for revenge, he offers to take down the Armadyne CEO, but what he gets has the potential to change the lives of everybody on Earth and Elysium forever.

While not exactly "Wilkus-becomes-a-prawn-and-fights-humans" material, Elysium does have, in many ways, an original plot. A given since Neill Blomkamp tends to make sure that his films don't feel extremely derivative, but this plot works to the film's advantage and helps enhance its moral even further. The film, in many ways, reads like a critique of objectivism, particularly the Ayn Rand brand, where selfishness is considered a virtue and charity is considered bad. Kind of like BioShock in space, really, only that the "man chooses/slave obeys" theme is played down. A lot. Then again, seeing Max fight over whether or not he should follow Delacourt's orders and respect Elysium as the off-limits area or follow Spider's orders and potentially put Elysium's non-political masses at risk wouldn't really work in the context of the film - he's not a carefully manufactured organism like Jack, but rather a human being with real experiences trying to uphold a duty he aligned himself to when he was young. He wants Earth to get some charity, not turn Earth into the new elite and create more slums.

As for the individual components of the film, they all mesh together to enhance Elysium's message. The acting, in particular the performances by Matt Damon and Sharlto Copley, is one of the strongest suits of the film. Matt brings what could've been a one-dimensional action hero into full bloom as he becomes a living being with motivations, emotions, and individuality - much like how Wilkus ended up becoming in District 9. As for Sharlto's character, he reeks of pure evil. While obviously not a generic "born-bad" like most blockbuster villains, he does have very maniacal traits. Kruger, as shown throughout the film, possesses a certain duality - a charitable side that wants others to live and a malicious side that wants others to die. The man is a walking contradiction and yet he feels more real than, say, Butch Cavendish from The Lone Ranger a.k.a. Tonto's Billion-Dollar Movie. Kruger has life within him. He isn't just evil for the plot's sake, but rather because he's forced into it by his own misfortunes and fractured mind.

However, as with any film, Elysium does have its share of faults. For starters, it's way too short. While a trivial complaint, its truncated length doesn't give the story enough room to develop its characters sufficiently and to put Max through his full quest. Everything's sped up just to fit the film within an approx. 1 hr 50 min length. A story like Elysium needs all the room it can get in order to communicate its ideas - not to the point where fight sequences between Kruger and Max take up 2 hours of screen time ala Heaven's Gate, but a film that feels fully fleshed out without feeling like something's slightly empty. Another fault with the film is how the citizens of Elysium seem to be presented as solely selfish human beings with Gatsby-esque lives. Is there any variation pertaining to how these rich denizens thing? Are there people who want Earth residents to have the same rights as the Elysian elite? Do any of the politicians have political beliefs opposite of President Patel and Senator Delacourt? And another complaint: sometimes, Kruger feels too evil-for-evil's-sake. Another one: it doesn't have the potential depth of District 9. And another one, and another one, et cetera.

However, the positives outweigh the faults. You can ignore the lack of focus on Elysian citizens - the film, after all, is about the struggles of Earth as it's neglected by politicians raised in wealth. You can ignore Kruger's occasional foray into useless antagonism - he works so well as a dualistic character. You can ignore the slight lack of story development - at almost two hours, the film feels perfectly paced despite being slightly truncated for wide release. What matters is that Elysium works. Elysium works dangerously well. You feel for these characters on a visceral level unseen in mainstream cinema ever since all that Oscar bait came out in the 1990s. Neill's style fits perfectly well to communicate his message of change and charity in an entertaining package. And hell, it's getting better reviews than The Smurfs 2. That's saying something. In the end, what can I say? Elysium is a good film - and quite frankly, it feels like the film District 9 should've been.

A-


oh god I hope I'm not committing a Horrible Bosses scenario again where I like a movie and then I realize it's not that good

Netflix That Shit – Breaking Bad


Some of you reading this might be surprised to know that I taught English for a while. And to answer your next question, it was mostly middle school and high school. During that time, one of my co-workers questioned my taste in literature, citing that most of the works I enjoyed teaching/reading were of a dark nature and rarely had a happy ending. My typical response was something along the lines of “Well who says that life always has a happy ending?” For me, feeling warm and fuzzy was never a prerequisite to a good book/movie/TV show. To me, the best writers were the ones that pulled no punches and let you experience all the gritty unpleasantness that the world can offer. The best characters were the flawed ones who gave you a reason to feel what they feel and see the world through their eyes. And the best stories were the ones that moved you to feel something whether it was good or bad.

A little over a year ago, I was looking through streaming titles on Netflix, and found Breaking Bad. A friend of mine had mentioned it to me several times, telling me how good it was and yadda, yadda, yadda. I knew it was about a chemistry teacher who gets diagnosed with cancer and becomes a meth cook so he can pay the bills and leave money for his family after he dies. Once I started watching it, I literally couldn’t stop. As clichéd as that sounds, I must defend my position by saying that Breaking Bad is one of those shows that really is as good as everyone tells you. The characters were unique and the majority of them are tragically flawed. The story line carries on between episodes but rarely feels like it’s lagging from lack of material. The scenes are beautifully filmed with lots of creative shots and lush colors. The show has a knack for making life seem dark, bleak, and cruel while peppering the story with dark humor and unexpected comic relief. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point. This is storytelling on a different level. The series is in its final season which began airing on August 11^th, and it just so happens that the first five seasons are available to stream on Netflix, so if you become as enamored with this show as I am, you can catch up on the entire story line before the show ends forever.

If you’re not familiar with the show, some of the faces might not be instantly recognizable, but once you watch you’ll remember them forever. Bryan Cranston (who some might recognize as Dr. Tim Whatley on Seinfeld or Hal from Malcom in the Middle) plays the lead role of “Walter White/Heisenberg”, an overqualified high school chemistry teacher who partners up with former student “Jesse Pinkman” (played by Aaron Paul). Walter has an edge in the meth game in that his knowledge of chemistry allows him to produce a “pure” product. He seems poised to make huge amounts of money, but problems continue to arise either in the form of psychotic drug lords or Walter’s DEA agent brother-in-law (played by Dean Norris) who happens to be looking for him (of course not knowing that Walt is the man he’s looking for). Even the supporting cast is colorful and entertaining. One of the best additions to the cast has to be Bob Odenkirk as “Saul Goodman”, the “criminal” lawyer that helps Walt and Jesse launder their money.

Now I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said about hundreds of different TV shows before, so in an attempt to pique your interest further, I should say that one of the main things that make this series stand out is its characters. They are unique in that there really aren’t any definite “good guys” or “bad guys”. A major theme of the series is the transformation of the main character Walter white, from a mild mannered and subdued father to a truly remorseless and cold blooded criminal. And curiously, some characters (like Gustavo Fring) might be the bad guy in one episode, but the good guy in others depending on the season and episode. It’s a creative way of keeping the viewer guessing. And keeping with the subjects of characters, this series has some majorly memorable villains. Tuco Salamanca (villain from seasons one & two who I’ll talk about later) would give any sane person nightmares after witnessing the season 1 finale.

Obviously, the pilot episode would be a great place to start for anyone curious about the series. However if you need a little more convincing, I’ve assembled a short list of a few “essential episodes” that represent the quintessence of Breaking Bad. These are the “can’t miss” episodes that highlight all the talent that goes into making this show. On your next day off, park it in front of your TV or laptop, grab some snacks and cozy up with everyone’s favorite meth cook.

Spoiler Alert – there are a few minor spoilers to follow, but nothing that will ruin the series for you.

Season 1 Episode 7 – Crazy Handful of Nothin’
This episode stands out to me for multiple reasons, not the least of which being that this is the episode where Walt “transforms” into his Heisenberg alter ego. What I mean by that is, Walt shaves his head and later in the episode adopts the pseudonym at his first drug deal. Anyway this is significant to the story because up until this episode, Walt was insistent that he and Jesse should be able to sell their product without anyone getting hurt. It marks the beginning of Walt’s moral downward spiral as he starts to realize he has a taste for breaking the law.

Just as important as this introduction though is the introduction of Tuco Salamanca, a high level drug kingpin (played by Raymond Cruz) who will change your definition of the word “psycho”. I love the way the lighting, the music in the background, and the intense acting combine in this scene to create a dreamlike atmosphere you’d expect to see in a Scorsese movie.



Never mind the fact that this guy isn’t even real; the guy is so blood chillingly scary that every time you watch one of his scenes, you’ll be secretly praying that you never run into anyone like him in real life. His stare is icy to say the least, and so convincing is Cruz’s performance that you’ll probably believe he really is that crazy. Aside from using a bag of money as a weapon, his idea of hunting is shooting a cow with a machine gun until there’s nothing left, and those gloves around his neck imply that he’s a Golden Gloves winner (which will be important in the episode “A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal”).

But the best part of this episode has to be the debut of the “Heisenberg” persona, and I speak of him as though he’s a different character because he practically is. Once Walt shaves his head, gone is the timid chemistry teacher and what remains is a confident, cold blooded criminal who lives like he’s dying. This mentality becomes a major theme of the show and the driving force for all the crazy shit that Walt does during the remainder of the series. I won’t get into what happens during the climax of this episode, but I will say you get to see Tuco put a cigarette out on his tongue and if you listen closely, you can hear Howard Dean’s famous scream used as a sound effect.

Season 2 Episode 7: Negro y Azul
To say that this episode is gritty is an understatement. It opens with a neat little mariachi song that summarizes the story so far and also gives you a preview of what’s in store. I have to say, mariachi music is much more interesting when you actually know what they’re saying. Anyway, the main feature of this episode is the development of Hank’s character, who up until now has been mostly the comic relief of the series. Hank’s life lessons and rants almost remind me of the musings of the famous blowhard Polonius from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. He seems arrogant and goofy most of the time, while putting on a tough face, but here we see the layers peel away to reveal a very flawed and complex character who is troubled by a deep-seated fear of failure. In this episode, Hank accepts a promotion that involves him working in El Paso, on the border of Texas and Mexico. He has a hard time fitting in and experiences a traumatic event that really caught me off guard. The following video contains some spoilers.



This is one time where I wish I could say this scene is just Hollywood embellishment gone wild, and that things like this never happen in real life. Mexico and many parts of South America have become synonymous with drug related violence. I live in Texas and know many people who have made a weekend trip out of visiting the Texas/Mexico border, but many are now afraid to visit because tourists are commonly kidnapped now by cartel members (and that’s not even the worst of it). So while that scene does have a bit of “Hollywood flair” to it, it is not uncommon to hear of similarly gruesome and despicable acts happening south of the border. When I stop and think about what law enforcement has to go through in the fight against drugs, it really boggles my mind that such savagery exists in the world and there are people who have to stand up to it on a daily basis.

Season 3 Episode 10 – Fly
It wouldn’t be a stretch to call this episode different. On the season 3 DVD/Blu Ray commentary, creator Vince Gilligan calls this a “bottle” episode, in that the entire episode takes place in basically one setting with the intent of saving production costs. At first glance, “Fly” might appear to be filler since it doesn’t significantly advance the plot of the series. But under this façade is a gem of an episode that deserves marks for its ingenious camera shots, creative characterization, and razor sharp dark humor. In a nutshell, Walt and Jesse spend the majority of the episode trying to kill a lone fly that has found its way into the lab. What is really amazing about this episode is that the creators manage to take this one idea and keep it interesting for fifty minutes. It almost feels like a Shakespearian comedy. At times you’re laughing at the (almost) slapstick jokes, and other times you might be empathizing with Walt when he muses about how he’s “lived too long”. My absolute favorite moment from this episode though is when Walt appears out of nowhere wielding his “fly-saber”, and looking at Jesse like he’s out for blood. Watch below to see the hilarity that ensues.



As stated previously, the writers of this episode deserve some gold stars. What I love about this episode is how we learn so much about Walt through his monologues. What we see is a man who is teetering on the brink of losing everything (either by the DEA arresting him or his boss murdering him) who is looking for control over some aspect of his life. The fly represents misplaced frustrations and fears Walt is feeling, and in his mind if he can’t get rid of the fly, then he’s got no hope.

There is a spoiler or two if you watch this episode out of series, but regardless of when you watch it you’re gonna want to watch it again. It’s the kind of story that reveals new pieces every time you experience it.

* * *

So, are there people who might not like Breaking Bad? Of course…If you’re offended by swearing, sex, violence, blood, gore, prostitution, drug use, or generally immoral behavior then Breaking Bad might not be for you [/joke]. But then again, what would you expect from a show whose name means “raising hell”? The tale of Heisenberg and those who surround him is a rollercoaster at some points, and an earthquake at others. Still need more convincing to see it? Each season of the show has a page on the Metacritic ratings website. The seasons have earned scores respectively of 74, 85, 89, 96 and 99. Perhaps 50 million Breaking Bad fans really can’t be wrong. Netflix that shit!

Do you like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? I do!



My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic season 3 is a true blue masterpiece. Hasbro may have left the show without its main creator leading the way, but much like Ren & Stimpy before it, cutting the head off made it better than originally expected! Season 1 admittedly had a fair share of problems and season 2 made it worse, but the masterminded writers remedied many of the problems that had plagued this show about toy ponies. What followed was a second renaissance of beauty, knowledge, and wealth that pertained to the masses from both within and afar. Let it be known that Lauren Faust had chosen a wise successor in Meghan McCarthy, and with her leading the table of creative writers, there revives hope that TV (especially with modern children's cartoons) would become good again. We have grown tired of the same shitty TV show clichés that plague modern entertainment; the people (those that have actively accepted the name "Bronies", if you will) have grown to become more educated in what they want to see and how we should properly tribute it for the masses. And as long as this type of battle rages on, the people shall continue to fight for their right to challenge the tired old system that has plagued television ever since the mid-2000s.

I have personally had one of the best experiences of my life watching this... genius. I'm going to be singing out a lot of praise so if you have a hobby to take care of or dislike articles with lots of words, then just head down to the end of this article to see the inflexible and completely accurate score I've given it. If you're still reading beyond this point, then let me tell you that what I've wrote down is a lie and does not accurately reflect my thoughts on the series' third season. I really just wanted to dive my hand into a little bit of parody.

It can't be delayed any longer, ladies and gentlemen. We have gone through a long enough period to rest between this season's finale and what one should expect out of it. And since the Writing Staff has produced interestingly analytical results for each of its past seasons, one should also wonder what they thought of its third season as well. So what would this author based off of his own perceptions feel about this third season? What will his rating be? And why is it that three years have passed and this little "Brony" phenomenon is still going on in a just as strong passion as it has in late 2010?

Well, where to begin...


"We be shining like diamonds, y'all be petty cash..."

I guess the best place to start is how I first got into the show in the first place. Back in I believe either late 2010 or early 2011, there were some members like Jaz that had avatars and signatures found on YouChew. I personally thought it was somehow related to the anime Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt (stupid now, I know), yet I became a bit curious with it. Eventually, I stumbled across some good artwork involved with the subject on a more not-as-popular art website (as in not DeviantART or FurAffinity), with a comment linking me a user that had episodes including the latest (at the time) episode. That kind of stumbling lead to a comment that had a user holding what was at the time the most recent episode of the show. Long story short, I watched said episode and... I didn't really like it. Admittedly, the most recent episode at the time was an episode that involved the more younger ponies than the main characters shown above, but it still didn't leave a good first impression on me. In fact, the only reason why I even continued onward was due to some of YouTube's captions they had.

While I could say that I later on became a fan of sorts, I also eventually noticed that the "Brony" community showed signs of flaws that should have really become an inevitability for any growing fanbase. Despite growing to the point where the show itself has a board on 4chan, there are still plenty of concepts found within that make the concept of what the Bronies originally considered themselves shells of their community. If I had to guess when it first started to unravel, it would have to be during season 2 when the fanbase bitched about changes involving a background pony not only having a voice change, but also a change of looks during one episode's re-release. That was where fans would start to see cracks on a fanbase that was otherwise stable. It also started to sees cries of pandering and ruined forever roam out through the lands of the internet.

This kind of behavior made the fanbase feel a bit sour on my taste, as well as made me more appreciative of Captpan6's reviews of the first two seasons. While I might not necessarily have agreed with him on the overall score of his first review, I do see his points in certain areas, such as some of the plot points and stories. The second season's review, on the other hand, I could certainly agree with since there were plenty of problems that made that season feel like a downgrade, especially with one particular writer holding some of that blame. Still, there were some aspects of season 2 that made a fan hopeful for a better third season; there were episodes like "Secret of My Excess" and "Hurricane Fluttershy" that showed nice character growth, some of the jokes gave me some fine laughs, and even most of the music was still nice to listen to. However, that's all in the past; a new season was afloat and needed proper viewing.

Unlike Captpan6, I prepared for each episode like it was a little mission of sorts. However, I was also aware that time is a fickle mistress, so I really needed to wait until enough time passed before really having a clear idea of what episode was like. That included how it went from Point A to Point B, what the characters were like, how the music fit in (and whether it was good or not), etc. Even as a fan of the show beforehand, I do need to judge it as if I were a stranger to that world again. If there was one part that I had to still remember after all this time, it's that the show is meant for little kids, and as much as I would like to talk about many of its darker elements, I also need to remember that both children and adults could like some of the more lighter moments as well.

This season was kind of interesting for a few reasons. First, it cut down the amount of episodes to nearly half its original amount. Secondly, some of the show's main staff in Lauren Faust and Rob Renzetti had no input on what each episode needed for it to work; even the two-part wedding episode had some involvement from the duo. Those two scenarios made it feel more interesting since if not only asks whether some of the newer staff members would rise up to the challenge without their old overseers, but also if part of the show's problems came from having too many episodes per season. In addition, there happened to be a twist in at the end of the season that caused some very huge controversy, which had me make sure I just gave out my own thoughts on it, good or bad. Speaking of which, I should just cut to the chase already with them.

Personally, I found it to be better than season 2, but not quite as good as season 1 was.


Yeah, I need to explain my stance on this one. Like the past two seasons beforehand (more so season 2), season 3 brought back all the major voice actors to go along with a few minor introductions following suit. When having a pale voice isn't required, the voices remain as vibrant as ever. The amount of guest voices aren't really as large as the second season's was, but that's fine since they don't take away too much credit from the main voice actors. In fact, in a way, they actually kind of enhance them. I say that because without an overly abundant amount of guest voices, you can truly appreciate how each of the main characters approach heir actions and emotions within their involved scenes.

Another two areas that has still managed to improve upon itself is in it's animation and environments. It may be a bit ridiculous to talk about at this point, but just when you think they might have peaked in how they animate their episodes, they somehow manage to still up the ante on what they do for a great majority of the time. When I say that, I mean the design choices they have are still cute to see, but there is one instance where the animation kind of stands out for a more obtuse reason. That will be touched upon later; as for the environments, they really bring out how to make a kingdom/empire look truly grand, a takeover from an evil influence look like it's going to take over, how a swamp should be murky, and more. Of course, great visuals do not make a great story, but they can help, especially when working with technology some would call "inferior."

Like the first two seasons beforehand, this season also opens up with a two-part episode about a new evil trying to make their influence take over Equestria. The first season had an entity named Nightmare Moon being released from the Moon after being trapped in it for 1,000 years; that two-part story was more about the focus on Twilight Sparkle and the friends she would meet up with and trust throughout the series. It didn't really display the power Nightmare Moon all that much, but it could be forgiven as a story being more about how gaining new friends can be important in life. The second season's two-part opener, on the other hand, had a more chaotic beast named Discord being released from a stone prison to basically cause disorder throughout Equestria and even caused the main characters to turn on each other! That story would certainly have been better had it been a three-part story (or the length of an animated movie) since it was more rushed throughout the second half of the story, but it still had an entertainment factor that made it not bad to watch. This season's no exception on having a new villain trying to use its dark powers to take over Equestria, which feels like a trendy little story at this point. It doesn't really help that of the three opening season two-part episodes this show's had, this one was probably the weakest of them all.

In this season's opening episodes, we have a new land that was never seen before in modern-day Equestria called the Crystal Empire rising up out of its shadows after 1,000 years had passed (like Nightmare Moon coming out of her prison). That land was ruled by a unicorn named King Sombra that was defeated by both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna (much like Discord), only the king had cast a spell to make the empire disappear before his defeat. Because of this new information, the main characters are all sent off to the Crystal Empire and, with the help of the married Shining Armor and Princess Cadence (who would later on live in this area), need to find a way to not only help the crystal ponies of the empire regain their confidence and crystallized sheen, but also to help stop the king from using fear and hatred to revive his control over the empire and, consequently, all of Equestria.

"I am the King of your souls, now fear my wrath... with migraine headaches!!"

If you probably couldn't tell from the first two sentences, these episodes end up borrowing certain aspects of each of their past openers to make up this story. However, that doesn't necessarily make it the main reason why I feel like that; many TV shows tend to rip off other forms of media plenty of times, yet they can still bring out nice episodes when done in a right manner. The problem that I had with it is that it didn't distinguish too much of a personality difference to make King Sombra truly stand out among other villains shown; even Nightmare Moon had an interesting little identity of being the little sister of a more-or-less immortal deity-like figure that she was jealous towards. The king, on the other hand, is only known as a ruler that had used his influence to enslave his own people and also has a little infatuation for crystals. Most of the time, he's shown as a looming, shadowy figure that could very well break into the Crystal Empire and rule it under his might with ease, yet the only damage he wound up doing in his shadow form was neutralize Shining Armor's horn with his dark crystals. Even when he gets to return into his unicorn form, he doesn't really maintain it long enough for it to be relevant, and before you know it, he's easily defeated!

In addition, there were a few pacing problems that I saw with the songs that it had. That's right, unlike the first two season opening stories, this story actually has singing from its characters. This is part of only a few times where singing is involved with the season, but I'll talk about that later. With the songs that I'm referring to here, the "Failure/Success Song" and its reprise have some pretty big holes in how they're paced. The initial song from the first episode makes it look like a scene that could have worked out well as the actual opening scene showing how Twilight Sparkle is so worried about whether she'll fail or not as something it could have built upon. Instead, we have the information all displayed to us immediately after she (and Spike) sing the song, so it make it render out as a more-or-less pointless song. The reprise, on the other hand, does hold a little bit of a purpose, but it kind of feels a bit off for everyone other than Spike to sing a reprise that they weren't initially a part of, as well as how the scene almost looks like it took a day for them to sing it under. If anything, the only song in that episode that had it help the story out and could be something to hum about was the "Ballad of the Crystal Empire," which had the gang sing about making sure the history of their empire could help save themselves with a special festival they used to have... even though a few things mentioned aren't as relevant as they're first shown off.

Still, even though I did find it to be a weak opening, it did have a few good parts to it that stopped it from being a complete failure. For example, even though I do bash on King Sombra having a lack of menacing presence over the Crystal Empire, he does have a more genius/cunning mind that you don't see in any of the other villains. While the other villains in this show do hold a cocky and not all that bright behaviors, the king actually does take good measures in making sure his success is more guaranteed in how it's stopped then having it worked out for them by force. Some of the measures like blanking out his citizens' memories by force and setting up traps to stop intruders helped make sure he had a plan to stop anyone that tried to halt his progress any further. In fact, if it weren't for some lucky moves by Twilight Sparkle and Spike (and the wedded couple mentioned earlier), he actually would have succeeded in his goals since his traps really were well-thought out and he wouldn't be bullshitting around in the process. I also like how Spike not only helped Twilight Sparkle on her journey even when she thought she didn't need it, but he also was the main catalyst to help save the day for a change of pace. Beyond that, it wasn't really a great way to open the season, and unfortunately, we may never really get to see King Sombra as anything more than what he's shown to be in the TV show.

After that opening story came and went, we were treated with stories of Pinkie Pie cloning herself, the Cutie Mark Crusaders being bullied by a new filly pony from Manehatten named Babs Seed (shown above in the third picture), Scootaloo having bad nightmares (not relating to the bullying), Rainbow Dash participating in the Wonderbolts Academy, and even an old rival from the first season returning to take her revenge on Twilight Sparkle.

"Do you want the mustache on or off? ...Well too bad!"

With each of these stories, I felt that they were some of the best (or at least better) episodes that came out of this season. Admittedly, the weaker episodes from the first half are those that have a more minor antagonist causing mischief towards either the main characters or the Cutie Mark Crusaders. The "Magic Duel" episode had (the Great & Powerful) Trixie finding a special necklace called the "Alicorn Amulet" that increases a unicorn's magic powers in exchange for losing some of their sanity and uses it to exact her revenge on Twilight Sparkle. I personally enjoyed it more for the action that came out of it, as well as an ending that shows a nice way to bite someone in the ass badly (although I do realize that one does need to watch the first season to understand what I'm talking about here), but it was otherwise a modified story in a sense to the Cutie Mark Crusaders-based episode. The episode I'm referring to, "One Bad Apple," has Babs Seed (a cousin of Apple Bloom and Applejack) visiting Applejack's farm and staying with them for a while; unfortunately for Apple Bloom and her friends, her old bullies peer-pressured Babs to be a bully to them herself and causes mischief towards the trio. This episode does help children understand that sometimes children, no matter what their situation is, could be bullied or be bullies themselves even if they do see it themselves and that all they might really need are true friends that could help them see it through to better themselves. If anything would be a problem with the two episodes, it's how they put on quite a lot of focus on the actions the antagonists do with little for the main characters to help make them stop them from causing more trouble in the process.

These next three episodes from the first half not only feel like episodes that could have been the better episodes of season 2 had they premiered during that time, but also exemplify why this season's a bit better than last time. It's through episodes like "Too Many Pinkie Pies" and the "Wonderbolts Academy" that show better development and chemistry towards the main characters; no longer do they do really stupid shit like make up a new character, then boast about said character to make one of their friends jealous just to prove a point to them. I was especially impressed with the latter episode since the writer of that episode performed a much better job in that episode alone than in her entirety of writing last season, although the former does have a great joke on one of the series' past iterations. "Sleepless in Ponyville" also put up the best episode of the season with it having the right mixture of frights, comedy, mystery, character development, and even some fan service to make it an episode that I wouldn't mind recommending to at all even with it looking at the issue of insomnia. In between all of this, having the main characters act like true friends after years on end help solidify how they are all best friends to each other and help each other out (with success) combined with actions that (for the most part) don't seem contrived, and you could see how this season ends up leaving a better taste in one's mouth than the last season did.

Unfortunately, once the second half of the season came, it didn't really perform as well as the first half did. In fact, there were either only one or two episodes from that half that actually came off as good from what I saw in them. One of them that I thought was also one of the better episodes of the season was Discord's returning episode (even though the title does have a more tiring meme as a title over a quirky little shout out to an old Lauren Faust cartoon). The other episode that is more questionable on whether it's successful or not is the last episode that's gained controversy over its fans. Beyond that, they signify why I can't really rate this season higher than I could for the first season.

Looking through the second half of the season, it's almost jarring to see how mirrored it was in terms of quality. While the first half had episodes that had interesting development and (minus the two-part opener) were good, if not great, almost every episode in the second half felt more uninteresting and underdeveloped. For example, while the "Apple Family Reunion" did have a good opening that actually would have made for an interesting episode to talk about, it became marred by bad development and rushed pacing that makes the episode a bit disappointing. The interconnected episodes "Just for Sidekicks" and "Games Ponies Play" had the first episode had Spike taking care of the ponies' pets while they all go to the Crystal Empire (which is more of a premise that I don't care for), while the second episode more represented having the ponies making sure they have the recently revived Crystal Empire (and by extension, Princess Cadence and Shining Armor) have a good representation on opening up an Olympics-like event called the 'Equestria Games.' Both of them take premises that aren't as interesting as some of the earlier episodes that took place, and the two episodes that turned out to be more of an average, if not below-average, output separately just became exactly that when taken as a whole. As for "Spike at Your Service," well... despite the fact that two different people wrote this episode (one of whom was the same writer for the "Wonderbolts Academy"), it becomes one of the worst episodes from the show (as well as the worst episode for this season) between how cliche Spike helping Applejack out becomes, how completely uninvited I was for any comedy that came out of it, and how some of the things done screw around its own logic just to try and make it work. Also, remember how when I said earlier that there was one instance when I said the animation felt a bit... conflicting with itself? This episode shows what I mean with a piece of 3D animation that makes the antagonistic timber wolves stand out so badly that it doesn't really look like its in the right form of media.

"Here, you can keep those eyes... I've got a trillion more where that came from!!"

The episode from the second half that I could safely consider the best of the second half was the meme-influenced title "Keep Calm & Flutter On." A big reason why it became a good episode was because of season 2 villain Discord returning to form; the show is aware that he was the biggest pain the ponies had to deal with yet, and Princess Celestia (the pony that wanted to bring Discord back to life) does plan on using him in the future, even if the future plans are pretty vague. Discord still keeps with his ways of bringing out chaos for his nature, but he does bring out some fine character development with his chaos since not only does he show how his chaos can come out even in tiny little mishaps, but there also was the main idea of how being a friend with Fluttershy can work after living with her for quite a bit of time. Fluttershy also gains character development that makes her hold more of a settled nature on what she truly is and how she has her morals that she stands by despite what others might believe in them. Like most episodes, it certainly does have its flaws (mainly more near the end than in the beginning), but even with Discord giving into the show's premise on friendship, he still has his own values that still make him become a fun character to watch and even his compromise shows that he still has a bit of a mischief bone in him that can make someone want to see what he could do next.

The other episode that I'm referring to is also this season's finale. The "Magical Mystery Cure" was waiting to take you away more of a polarizing episode in not only structure, but also what its overall story and ending was about. With any regular episode, there would be 22 minutes of any or all of the main characters tackling a situation they're dealt, find a way to get through their situation, and learn their lesson out of it. Sometimes they have a major villain that needs more time than that, but its more or less what you see is what you get here. With this episode, we've gotten ourselves... a musical episode. You heard it right, a musical episode... with a main character gaining something new later on, but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself there.

You may have noticed a lack of talking about the show's music here. Well that's because even though I do like it's music (for the most part), it's only been limited to a few points this season, which would probably be one of this season's fewest negatives over the last two seasons (even though less music was expected). Aside from the opening and finale, only two episodes really got a song from someone: Applejack and her family with "Raise This Barn" (which I thought was good in spite of simplistic lyrics) and the Cutie Mark Crusaders with "Babs Seed" (which I didn't really care for). This episode was basically the main course for someone that likes music as this episode holds a grand total of 7 songs in a 22 minute episode. Admittedly, there were only two songs in that episode that I didn't really care for, but the rest of the episode, especially the song down below, had songs that I actually really liked/enjoyed listening to over and over again.


"Life flashed before my eyes there..."

Even with that said, since this episode's apparently so fucking special, what's the story about? Well, since you asked so nicely, the story's about Twilight Sparkle accidentally reading a broken spell from one of her own inspirations, which causes almost every main characters' Cutie Marks (the symbols on their asses) to be switched around, which also changes their apparent destinies into something they aren't good at whatsoever. Now with all of Ponyville being screwed over, it's up to Twilight Sparkle to fix up her friends' fake destinies to their true callings, having her fix up that one spell that was broken for so long, and ultimately become a new alicorn princess to help lead over some section of Equestria. Yeah, you heard me correctly, the season finale is a story that could have been better off being a concluding two-part story. I say this since the last part almost comes so out of nowhere that it left people out on a great divide. Still, while I do see how easily rushed it was since they put in two seemingly unrelated stories into one whole episode, I found it to be nice little episode to end it on, especially if it really would have been the end of the overall series as a whole.

There are characters that had gotten good development, so-so development, and almost no character development whatsoever. Twilight Sparkle obviously had some major changes, but she had grown to make sure she doesn't get overly panicky and concerned while solving personal and national issues she might have, while Rainbow Dash probably held just as big growth in having standards on what was truly right for her idols to hold, as well as accepting Scootaloo as a big sister figure of sorts. Meanwhile, both Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy had a little bit of growth with them even though it hasn't been anything completely major like the other two characters mentioned above; Spike could have also been developed well after the Crystal Empire story, but having him revert towards a clumsy, sometimes greedy sidekick only makes his development so-so at best. Finally, Rarity and Princess Celestia didn't have anything focusing on them all that much, and Applejack even had pretty bland development overall. While I do understand that cutting down on episodes leaves less time for development over the important characters, as well as appreciate the huge development that was shown for Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle (barring further alicorn judgment), I'd much prefer having all the characters more balanced with great development than leaving only a few with great development and some of it being a bit bland or non-existent.

Even with all these faults at hand, I still had an enjoyable time watching this season. The last season did have some fine episodes to watch, but the amount of episodes that were so terrible or bland made it not so worthwhile to look back on. Strangely enough, even with all the concerns that came about from this season before and afterwards, I ended up having a much better time looking back on this season as a whole. While there were still plenty of problems involved in some of the episodes at hand (especially near the second half), there were enough aspects that I did enjoy throughout the time, such as some better comedy and better development that made it more enjoyable than what I had initially expected. Hell, even though the "Bronies" might still be a bit on the fence with the overall future on what the writers plan on doing with this show moving forward, they are still judgmental enough to make sure they get their facts straight on what ruled and what sucked. Speaking of which, I should get my real final score on here right now. If I thought season 1 was worth an 8/10 and season 2 was a 6/10, then season 3 would have to get a 7/10 for me due to the second half trending a bit too close towards its past problems. Now you can disregard everything else beyond this sentence.

"And that's how Rat got the hug that was truly desired from within..."
 
I LOVED this experience so fucking much! In fact, I highly doubt that there will be anything that will EVER match the beauty that this show has given to the world. I do not know what kind of other entertaining shows there may be on TV, but I can guarantee you that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic tops them ALL! This is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time levels of perfection. NEIGH! It exceeds The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time! It exceeds the wealth of many classic forms of media like Citizen Kane and A Christmas Carol. I feel like my team won the World Series or the NBA Finals; it’s that amazing! My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is, by far, the absolute best thing I’ve ever experienced in my life, and anybody that wants to journey into the realms of media should look at this season as how to create something classic correctly.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Season 3 – 11/10

This is so exciting that I can’t wait to see what happens next!

…I don’t think I’ll ever find happiness again now.

I'm going on record on here to tell you that my absolute favorite movie in the whole wide world is Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It may not be the very best film and it may be partly due to nostalgia clouding my judgment, but I still think that it holds a close place in my being as both a person and as a "creator". Whilst I would love to enjoy gushing about the movie as a whole, I would instead like to gush to you about what the movie is categorized to be, an animation/live-action crossover. What Who Framed Roger Rabbit managed to do was turn a simple special effect gimmick into a selling point for a story. Back then, when you thought that cartoons and people were going to be in the same place, all you could think of was some Disney schmultz (ironic that I say that) or Gene Kelly in a sailor suit dancing with Jerry. It was never thought to be anything more than that. Who Framed Roger Rabbit put forward a concept of putting the skill of the brush with the skill of the flesh together as one whole structure and trying to cement concepts from both worlds so that they could gel together in a narrative instead of leaving to simple suspension of disbelief. That's not to say that the two being more mixed together wasn't happening back then. If one recounts The Three Caballeros, Donald Duck and two other feathered friends go about with more realistic fellows and senoritas. While I do find myself liking the movie, it wasn't done right. You knew that when you saw the drawings with the live-action, it didn't feel like the two were truly in sync. The premise didn't help since it wasn't very cemented and focused more on silly visuals.

Now it is true that the last bit does apply partially to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but it had a point to why it did what it did. What made it so great wasn't that it was doing something new with such a combination but that it was doing something new with the way that they combined the live-action with the animation. The animation along with the live-action served to build up an atmosphere rather that one or the other being some sort of way to transition or serve as an effect. In the world, the animated characters which they call toons are considered actors and work on cartoons which is basically their movie/TV deals. Right there you see a role that is given to the animated portions and how it relates with the rest of the world around them. It also gives a sort of indication as to what the animated characters are capable of as it gives you insight on how they function in the world. They're basically indestructible (which is why they're great for the slapstick) but when presented to a mixture of paint thinners and removers, they can be killed. In a very subtle way, they're giving the animation a biology to it and they indicate why it's there. The realism of how the toons were in the world certainly helped to drive this further as it shows that the animation is rooted in the story rather than a simple set piece. That sort of an animation/live-action crossover is brilliant and leads to an ample amount of possibilities. The problem? Well, it hasn't been that explored.

Why could it be? Is it because of cost and tools? Well, if I believe that James Cameron can make Avatar (which is a CGI pseudo-version of the concept) with the amount of money that he did, I don't doubt that there is a possibility that the cost could maybe be overlooked. It's more within the interest of others in the concept. Sure, it could be an affordable venture to make the film, but is it going to get its money back? Most likely not. Only people interested in this sort of thing are losers like me. CGI animation, if it wanted to, could work as an animated/live-action crossover, but it's more used to add details or make things fly out without having to pay for the thing and the explosives to make it fly out (remember, you want to make your money back and more for a profit). So if say we wanted more traditional animation, then we might as well just shoot ourselves now. Not many people are thinking that the venture is worth it since people are forgetting now what that means. That's not to say there isn't a market for it, but it's very limited. With CGI though, we could have it looking more traditional and Flash also serves to be closer to that department. Both pose some problems, but it is capable to make the effect and make it work. Either way, there needs to be interest and it seems like there isn't. I can't say why, maybe it's the scarcity of seeing something rooted with the label of "animation/live-action crossover". It could also be of the troubles that two particular films made to the idea.



The first one is the R-rated wreck of Cool World. As much as I don't like this movie, the one thing that I'll give it credit for is adultizing cartoons. Ralph Bakshi being able to add more grit into animated movies is something that is to be respected considering every single flick that happens to be animated always falls into the "family-friendly" category. It did also have some interesting concepts, even if they sound stupid, such as a toon (or in the context of the movie, a doodle) having sex with a human and what would that bring as well as the extension of an artist's imagination when he/she sees it fully realized. The problem that was faced as with most bombs of Bakshi is that it was a very forced and clumsily handled insertion of the adult material. The logic that came from the world was not centered well enough and when animation would appear it was more so distracting in either its use or consistency. Now I don't mind that you don't fully see the potential of the effect realized in this movie as you did in WFRR, but the reasoning behind it wasn't clear and it failed to work. And I understand that cartoons don't need to make sense, but if you're going to mature the medium (even if it is a more exploitative way), you have to add more details to it or give more indication that there's no rules instead of staying in this bizarre middle-ground. As such, this movie not only gave the concept a bad name, but also gave the idea of maturing cartoons for the big screen a very slim chance.

It's not to say it killed the idea dead in the water. When WB had to revamp one of their greatest franchises they figured why not add that guy from the Mummy, Dharma from Dharma and Greg and that guy who'd go on to remake the Pink Panther into the mix? That would go on to be Looney Tunes: Back In Action. I know that there was another WB revamp that involved those wacky toons meeting humans, but I don't speak of Space Jam here. Why? Well, Space Jam, while a fun movie, was terrible and centered more on a gimmick rather than being a satire. Looney Tunes: Back In Action was more of the opposite, basically mocking spy films, sci-fi and the Looney Tunes themselves. It also managed to have similar effects to WFRR, allowing for greater comedy to flow from it. If there was any film that could be considered as the follow up to the best animated/live-action crossover, it'd have to be this one. So...with that said...why did it flop? Was it competition? Well I guess, The Matrix Revolutions and Elf are a tough cookie to beat. But I think the greater issue came less with the idea and more with the presentation. The voice actors behind the toons did fine, the animation did fine, but the live-action portion seemed lukewarm. I'm not just saying that to rip on Brendan...well I kind of am, but even a guy as animated as Steve Martin didn't seem to be at his all when doing the film. That and I guess maybe it could have gone further. Less cultural references and more mocking of the genres would have worked for its benefit. If it doesn't manage to make it's money back, there's not much chance that Hollywood will do the same...



With both of these films being able to bring something to the table by one being more adult and another one using the animation to aid with parody, what they seem to have lacked is a better presentation and dedication. Don't get me wrong, the people that were working on both films seemed to have put a substantial amount of effort into the work. Or at the very least the animators did. The writers, actors and directors (to an extent) perhaps could have used more effort by structuring the worlds better. It really requires more attention to detail than one would think when you mix the two. Sure, it's easy to have something animated be superimposed on something real, but for it to have a point and a purpose takes time. WFRR knew that and tried to clean up the details as best as it could and keep consistent with what occurred in the world. It didn't side-track itself too much with the zany effects, it rather conserved that for when it was necessary for a joke or building the environment. Cool World did it in a drive-by manner and while in some cases that works, it doesn't help when you do it all the time. If you do that, you might as well make a mindless cartoon. Instead of simply spitting out references, it allowed for the references to be more built into the narrative. It also managed to satirize better by building both the parts that it could subvert for humor but maintain for drama and atmosphere. It might have been hard for Looney Tunes to do that, but What's Opera, Doc? managed to do that. If there isn't that sort of attention provided to the film, it loses the chance to be something truly great, and in this sort of genre, truly great is the minimum to break even.

To fix this from an industrial standpoint obviously requires people to care both from the viewing aspect to the creating aspect. Real passion and energy helps to make this work. Even if people are that dedicated, it wouldn't hurt too much to find ways to cut costs. I'm not sure how that would work out, would it mean there's less action so that less cash is put towards how to create the effect that the cartoons are there in real life? Would it have to require a cheaper animation tool? Would you just need to hire a few actors? I'm not sure which one to go to, but if you find a way to reduce costs, breaking even becomes less of a stretch. Another way that it could do better is to make it more original. Rather than associate the animation with a famous brand like the Smurfs or Garfield, it should try to be more independent. This rings very true with CGI because a good chunk of those cartoons just look bizarre in 3D. That really seems to be the only major parts that could help it from the technical standpoint. We might have to wait a few years for this to take effect (if anyone was listening to this), and obviously the build-up to this idea will also take time.

With all of that said, I'd like to tap into concepts that the animation/live-action crossovers could tap into. As stated above, there is the maturing of the animation allowing for the production to be more adult and being able to use animation as an extension of the satire (which also kind of happened with Enchanted, so don't say I didn't bring it up) along with the idea that the animation is a realized version of the imagination of one character. I'd like to tap into the last one because I don't think that Cool World really did what it should have with the concept. Art is a way to convey current emotion and to lose oneselves in their own fictional paradise. It also serves as a gateway to how one's mind works. Having the animation being able to exaggerate the emotions or ideas that the character holds true allows for them to analyze them and see if they are proper. It could also be a way of the character confronting the fears dead on or being absorbed in the madness that is caused by what the animation brings forth. The animation itself could also be more centered around the story. Most animation is considered very childish, goofy and silly, so having the animation try to become more serious with the world or try to bring more of the light-heartedness to a se-oh...well WFRR did it but it could be done in many other ways and lead to many other results. Filling in the details leads to a great amount of possibilities and there's probably more that are in store if one prods further (such as the animation being able to consume the reality of the person, the nature of the animation and the live action pretty much represent the same world in different ways, the animation changing as the world changes, etc.).



I know that for a fact, very few people that are willing to carry this out into the film industry are going to do so. I'll be surprised/glad if any of them have come across this and actually say something about what I've written here. What I do know is that the idea of mixing animation with live-action can be much more than a gimmick. It has the potential to span out into the territory of great art and can reveal a lot of parts of humanity in a new and interesting light. Who Framed Roger Rabbit was proof of that and while Cool World and Looney Tunes Back In Action had it flaws, it showed that it could carry out those ideas and develop them to something greater. Both animation and live action film making require a lot of creativity, artistry and passion for them to succeed and to see both of them side by side, sharing that energy and putting it to the fullest that it can is something that I want to see again because it's beautiful to see it. It says to the audience that there is something more to the film than merely drawings over film. It says to them that both can make an experience and they can make it well. That one must maintain their imagination and use it in any way it can to help themselves. Maybe I'm just a fool to be overthinking this. Considering that there's such a thing as Smurfs 2...I most likely am.

This video details everything you have to do to score with the ladies:

...Wow did you really fall for that?

Well normally I’d kick back and wait for the eventual, “That’s not Soulja Boy Barney” comments but this is on the front page and I need to make sure it’s suitable. Don’t worry! There is a real article coming, and a very worthwhile one at that! So quit your rustling and read on.

Are we good now? Awesome. Now then, I imagine most of you testosterone-fueled members clicked here hoping for some holy grail of relationship advice. Some of you might already have a babe in your arms and just clicked this to see what wonders awaited you. The rest of you are probably women. Hmm…I dunno if this is the article for you ladies…ah what the hell; read it if you want. Getting back to the point, it’s so hard to find good advice for males concerning relationships. The Internet boasts a plethora of advice. Some of it’s good, some of it’s bad, and some of it comes from AskMen contributors who think that a good put-down goes a long way.

But why do we turn to the Internet of all places? Well most of the time, it offers quick, easily-applicable advice. When prepping yourselves for a date I imagine a few of you will Google something like, “What kind of fragrance should I wear?” The insecurities take hold. You want to ensure that nothing goes wrong and she likes what she sees, so you look for that little extra step that will earn her approval, and it’s certainly understandable to feel a little intimidated. You really want to get somewhere with this woman and you want her to like you for who you are without having to put up a façade.

However, some men are just so wrong that not even an hour of browsing date tips will work. Quite a shame, really. Remember that Tex Avery cartoon where the primitive form of getting a woman was bopping her with a club and dragging her home by the hair? Yeah, it was politically incorrect, but it sure as hell was funny and I bet some guys out there wish that was actually in style. (Still there, ladies?) Aside from it being funny though, it made an argument: man is the dominant species; and back then there was some degree of truth behind it. Take a look at the mid-20^th century. The unspoken rule then was that women were the housewives and it was the men that did the real work. They were football-playing, drive-in-loving, T-bone-munching powerhouses. The women? Not so much.

So, that brings me back to 1979 today. Society has practically transformed itself since the mid-1900s. Now women are earning more money than they ever did. More of them are entering college and assuming bigger roles in the family and household. We almost had a woman be a US president! This change has been a long time coming, and rightfully so. But has this change impacted how we men look at relationships? Maybe this isn’t a new trend but I’m seeing more and more blogs and editorials that speak, “WOMEN IN CONTROL”. Maybe this isn’t a new trend either but I’m seeing more and more guys giving women all the relationship power, both on television and in life. Is the playing field leveling out or is something off here? Have gender behaviors changed or is this a whole new beast?

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to promote TOTAL MALE DOMINANCE, nor am I trying to instigate a war between the two sexes. I’m simply pointing some food for thought here. Flipping through the Relationships thread here gives me some interesting insight on relationships (it also gives me the MAZZ0SCALE but let’s not talk about that), but it’s the sort of advice that requires time and training to develop. You can’t just search for it on the Internet, skim it over, and immediately apply it to your dates. It requires a change in mindset and attitude so that it becomes instinctive. But because all this important advice is all over the place and in some cases unorganized, finding the right stuff is difficult. It’s not all in the thread either. I’m fairly convinced that if you want to get better with the ladies and remove that “Single” status from your Facebook page, you need to use an entirely different medium for advice.

And that’s why in this article we’re going to talk about a book!

HEY! HEY! GET BACK HERE!

Ah shit. Okay how many of you are left? One…two...that’s it huh…okay fine! You two are awesome! I didn’t need all those idiots, just you guys. You’re my best friends. Yeah. You’re…you’re...*sniff*…I’m okay! I’m good! Anyways, the book…

One day I aimlessly wandered into a thrift shop and on their $1 bookshelf I uncovered a rather interesting specimen:

The System by Doc Love.

Naturally when I uncovered interesting books like this I’ll stop, give it a little flip-through, and put it back. But I’d never come across a book on relationships before so I plopped down on a nearby armchair and opened up. I mean what the heck? For a one dollar-book I’m likely to find either something amazingly insightful or bizarrely awful. Oh Doc Love, grace me with your intellect! Show me the way of the woman!

Most dictionaries will cram columns of words into one page with short little sentences afterward, but The System is not most dictionaries. It’s a 200-page book with I’d say close to 200 definitions, roughly one definition per page. Some take up more than a page and others barely take up half. Also these aren’t exactly definitions per-say, they’re...well I’ll give you a quote.

Quote

Adam: Adam, the first Wimp, had his shot, missed it, and it’s been all down hill ever since. Just because a Kim Basinger look-a-like named Eve walked by in her birthday suit, he didn’t have to slobber all over himself and beg to take a bite – of the apple, that is!

It goes on for a few more paragraphs after that. This “definition” pretty much refers to Adam as “the first wimp”. The argument? Instead of refusing to take a bite of the apple, he fell for Eve’s looks and did as she said. An out-of-the-box thesis but nevertheless it does go on to make an interesting point: men shouldn’t drop to the floor and kiss the toes of every woman they see. Now granted Eve was the only woman in the world at the time and I’m certain God had a “Don’t Fuck the Animals” policy in the Garden but still, an important statement to keep in mind when dealing with women. Quite humorous, too.

Actually you know what? “Dictionary” isn’t a suitable label for this book. Doc Love expects anyone reading it to start from the beginning and work their way through, understanding each term written within. It’s more like an instruction manual of sorts, giving elaborate details on random relationship-related words and ways to apply them to meeting women. The front cover states “WHY DOES A WOMAN CHOOSE TO STAY WITH ONE MAN VERSUS ANOTHER?” This is a manual – a guide to the type of man that women prefer to be with. Or at least according to Doc Love.

Before each term, Doc Love gives three quotes from who I assume are his relatives from distant lands. Let’s see, we’ve got Fast Eddie Love, Sal “The Fish” Love, General Love, and Rabbi Love (there are plenty more but those ones stick out). There are even some Chinese proverbs, all of which have their sentences ending in “Grasshopper”, and some Apache proverbs which use no articles and implement a few Native American-sounding words. Somehow I can’t picture Jackie Chan saying something like, “Take two oxen to pull a wagon, Grasshopper”, but who am I to question a man whose entire family is named “Love”?

So that’s how the book is written. It’s not hard at all to read, the typeface is easily legible, and some sentences are even underlined for extra emphasis. This isn’t a boring book either. Beyond the aforementioned Adam quote there are some interesting theories here, and it got me curious enough to cough up a buck and take it home with me. Maybe there’s really something to this Doc Love after all?

Now the way this book interprets the human psyche is through a measurement called “Interest Level”, which is half mathematical and half mental. To sum it up, Interest Level is the level of interest a woman has for a man and vice-versa, so if I were to walk up to a woman I’ve never met and she immediately high-tailed it to Cuba, that would probably be considered low Interest Level. Doc Love asks men to focus heavily on the woman’s IL, and the way to do that is through the words she says, the actions she makes, and her attitude in doing so. He also tells men to make sure their IL is lower than the woman’s, or at least seems like it, so that the woman can attempt to bring it up. It’s an unorthodox method, but there is purpose in it. See, in doc’s perspective it’s the woman that should be opening up to the man to enhance the relationship, not the other way around. He argues that the man groveling in front of the woman and pouring his emotions out is wrong, and it makes the woman lose respect for him. That means all those sappy soap operas with the men bawling on his knees before a woman give us the wrong example. Hell, I’m sure everyone knows that already. Right? …Right?

In no way does this book feel chauvinistic at all. There is genuine respect for both parties and Doc Love even believes women can use the book to gauge the status of her own relationship. The only real put down of women he uses is the term “Feministas”. Not feminists, Feministas. It’s a more romantic term that refers to feminists that believe their kind is truly the superior one. The term is used throughout the book and the doc isn’t afraid to sugarcoat it. On the other end, this guy isn’t afraid to get hard on men. He berates the ones that disobey his System and reiterates several times that the only way to win with the ladies is to read his book until it’s implanted in the mind. This is either encouragement to make their purchase of this book feel justified, motivation to keep reading, or both.

So we have Interest Level, strange proverbs, and nasty Feministas. We also have Cary Grant movies, left-wing extremist bashing, and flushing bad numbers down the toilet. What else does The System have to offer? Well another interesting and crucial tidbit to this book is the use of “Challenge”. This, according to Doc, is what women really want. It’s the almighty strength of the male and it gets a whopping three pages of discussion in this book. But what is it exactly? There’s probably a more concrete definition in the book but to define it myself: it’s holding back just enough, purposely staying aloof and appearing distant.

The purpose of Challenge is to get the woman to think about the man. To paraphrase from the book: when the man doesn’t call her in a week and she’s anticipating a call, she starts thinking about him more. That’s if she truly likes him. If she doesn’t, she forgets about him and the man saves himself for a woman that will actually contain interest.

Quote

“Challenge is like money in the bank that works for you while you are asleep – it grows.”

Out of everything mentioned in this book, this concept of Challenge stuck out to me the most. It was the first time I’d seen such a tactic mentioned and it got me to thinking: When my relationships were working, was I doing this? And in what forms was I doing this? At that point, my Interest Level in The System was in the 90s.

As I said there are 200 pages in this book so I can’t mention everything in this analysis (at least not without typing out the whole damn book I think). But long story short, The System was one of the most intriguing dollar books I’d ever picked up, and I’d be damned if it didn’t get me thinking. In fact, it got me interested in this Doc Love character. Google tells me he’s one of the more famous and widely recognized love doctors out there. His writing is used on different websites and his book, which is actually valued at $100 on his website, has been in circulation for a long time.

So I got a $100 book at about a hundredth of the cost. Aren’t thrift shops awesome?

Wait a second…$100? For this? I mean it is rather introspective but come on! That’s the price of a school textbook! I’m pretty sure dating books don’t go for that much on Amazon. Actually, how much do they go for? One sec…let’s see, “dating”, sort by “High to Low”…what?! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!

Luckily there is another way to get your Doc Love fix. He’s a frequently scheduled guest on a national radio show where he gets guys from all over the country to call in and ask for advice. Hearing his voice gives off the impression of the stern father we all had when growing up. It’s not soothing, but it’s not demeaning. He’s both critical and encouraging when it comes to his listeners and he’s not afraid to flat out say, “You messed up.” He’ll also find some examples of people who use and do not use his System, whether they know it or not. I’m sure if he ever heard “Grenade” by Bruno Mars he’d smash some cans about.

To conclude, if you men want to get better with women, you guys need to step your game up. I’m not going to tell you to shell out a Franklin to get this thing unless you want to (yeah, I wish it was cheaper too, but what can you really do about it?) but I will say it’s worth reading a few of Doc Love’s columns and listening to his show. He’s not perfect, and he does admit that, but I believe he’s onto something here and should probably be taken into consideration when it comes to improving your pickup skills. Or hey, maybe you’ll find his book at your own thrift shop! In fact, I’m declaring today “International Thrift Shop Day”. Each and every one of you must go into a thrift shop and buy something to celebrate the occasion.

No seriously, this is awesome! $100 worth of book! And for only a dollar! Nothing could be better than this!



Oh…uh…

Nozdordomu's pick: “Zap! I’m Being Dramatic” by ProfesserCheeseBall



The source might be the single most-important ingredient in any good poop. No matter how much you change and edit what you’ve got, it helps if you picked a really exploitable thing to change in the first place. Some people will tell you not to poop sources that are funny on their own, but I disagree with that. Look at all the good King of the Hill poops, for example; it’s entirely possible to turn the show’s dry humor into something a lot less subtle. I say all of this because I want more Ambition poops.

Ambition has a lot of potential as a source. Its awkwardness and lack of common sense lead to some funny moments which could be easily exploited (hopefully not overused), and its cheap Flash animation could be altered in some very funny ways as well. ProfesserCheeseBall seizes most of that potential in “Zap! I’m Being Dramatic,” which plays fast and loose with the Ambition cut scenes, turning Ted, Yale, Duke and friends into high-pitched screaming lunatics. I have to admit, I’ve never been very fond of these types of poops, where sentence mixing goes all over the place and edits rush by too quickly for you to notice. Sometimes that can be annoying, but PCB doesn't overdo it; for example, he doesn’t spam Helen’s scream all over the place, but when it does come, it’s perfect. Overall I find it very enjoyable, if mainly for the way it mangles its underused source.


Crazy Luigi's Pick: "197- West Bitches Treason Sue Episode N(ine)" by Combuskenisawesome



If there's one YouTube Pooper that somehow manages to gain a consistent amount of quality from using a primary source in Pokemon, it's Combuskenisawesome. From the nice little faux TV introduction to the clever transition from Unova to Kanto, you really get a sense of interest out of the video early on. It's further along, however, that you really do get an sense of it holding a good mixture of old and new effects from Professor Oak's three Pokemon mixing themselves up and N repeating that you had to choose from those 3 Pokemon to Cilan being overly sexual with his sayings and having a Charmander accidentally creating a nuclear winter in the process; one particularly favorite part in that process is seeing N speaking a line from the Lion King that actually fit the scene it was working with. It's in the second half, however, that truly helps make it stand out from Ash's flashback on how his Charmander/Charizard story came to be to having his Charizard return with him making fun of his own Pokemon, N explaining to Cilan how Ash's Charizard is rich, using the old "Who's that Pokemon?" sound for the Black & White anime, and even Ash telling Cilan to shut the fuck up after putting up one too many sexual situations in his lines. With all that said, it really is a YouTube Poop that you have to watch in order to understand what I mean here since my words really don't do it enough justice.


HerrVarden's pick: Charlie Brown Becomes a Scientologist by ChristophersThings



So, I've been following ChristophersThings for a while. Why? I don't remember, but I know that he really likes to use KoTH, and make YTPMVs about it. They weren't awful, but I didn't really think much of them when I watched them. This YTP on the other hand has been in my head for a bit. It's got such a good use of pacing and a very "modern classic" style to it that I absolutely enjoy. The times that he makes a joke involving music, it really hits bullseye, especially with the first 40 seconds. The running gag didn't overstay it's welcome and was used quite well. I particularly liked the section where Charlie Brown is going through an existential crisis and seems to be distracted with drawing in the sand as Linus loses touch of reality and his bowel movements. The latter part worked very well, although I would have preferred the last 15 seconds to have appeared early so that the ending would have had more of an impact of Charlie Brown losing grasp of his sanity but it was still worth it to have him sentence-mix Eazy E. YEE-YUUHHH.


Dr. Strangebutts' Pick: SHADOW BLACK FIGHTER SIR (1984) FULL HD by TangerineImpz/Imperade


Whether Impz intended it or not, SHADOW BLACK FIGHTER SIR (1984) FULL HD is a throwback to the poops of 2006 and 2007. The source is Power Rangers Megaforce, like the... 19th or something...th... season of the long running Power Rangers series, a source used by early YouTube Poopers like Yamino, Duke, Tetsuo9999 , 1upClock, Impz himself and heck, even I snuck a few MMPR clips in some of my early stuff. Flashy video effects, multiple audio and video layers being utilized, and complex camera pans... are nowhere to be found. Impz stuck with good ol' (and by "good ol' " of course you know that I really mean "assfucking horrible") Movie Maker Vista to give us this travesty with speed ups, slow downs and repetitions. The end result is surprisingly good! What little I've seen of Megaforce is awful, awful, awful, even by Power Rangers' very low standards. But Impz was able to work his magic and turn pewter into gold. If you're like me -- a longtime pooper or watcher -- or enjoyed styles of pooping that are simplistic, you might just enjoy this: a new video that was made with old tricks.

The concept of linearity in video games is an oft-misused term, partly caused by a rise in sandbox-style games and role-playing games which utilize open-endedness as an important aspect of their design. Pure linearity is commonly seen as something to avoid in most genres, and the differences between judging the quality of a linear game and judging the quality of an open-ended game are muddled among many players, who fail to understand the differences.

Of course, either end of the spectrum can be detrimental to a game if implemented in a confusing way (for open-endedness) or in a way that railroads the player into barely needing to do anything (for linearity). Not only is deciding whether to be linear or open important, but finding a way to use a game's linearity or open-endedness to its benefit is perhaps even more important.

The sheer amount of difference between these two design philosophies is easily compared to Super Mario Bros and the original Legend of Zelda, as Miyamoto has stated that both games were designed to be opposites of one another: SMB was designed to be a linear adventure while Zelda was meant to be very open to let the player do as they wished. These concepts were taken to their fullest in each game, both to their benefit and to their detriment.

Take SMB's linearity, for example.


You gotta get from the leftmost part of the level to the flagpole at the rightmost part of the level. So simple it only took a sentence.

In Super Mario Bros, your goal is to get from the beginning of a level to the flagpole at the end. In between are a number of various obstacles and enemies that need to be avoided or surmounted in order to progress. Unlike Zelda, there is little freedom in terms of the order of going through the levels, save for the hidden Warp Zones you can find in certain levels. If you want to complete the game without Warp Zones, you will have to become skilled enough to get through World 1, World 2, and so on and so forth, within the time limit you're given in each level.

This benefits the game because of its straightforwardness. You can't go backwards, you can only keep moving, and you can't turn back the timer, which makes it very simple to learn. There's no need to wander around a level, nor is there any sense of not knowing what you're supposed to do. You have to get from Point A to Point B, and that's all there is to the game. It's easy to pick up and play.

However, this is also detrimental to the game (depending on your point of view) because it means the player is essentially forced to become skilled enough at the game to get through the later levels. Depending on how easily the player is able to pick up the nuances of the platforming, it may take them a short time or a long time to be able to finish the game. However, the inclusion of the aforementioned Warp Zones does alleviate this somewhat, allowing for players to potentially skip troublesome areas.

Legend of Zelda, on the other hand, is open-endedness to a surprising extreme.


Assuming a player is skilled enough at the game, the two screens with pink dots are possibly the only overworld screens that absolutely require an item (the Raft) to visit. Try telling that to a complete newcomer, and then ask them where they think the first dungeon is!

Zelda 1's goal is stated clearly in the introductory text crawl: you are Link, you have to find the eight pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom, and then you need to defeat Ganon and save Princess Zelda. However, when the player begins the game, they're plopped down into an area in the south of the map, and that's all the game does for you. When the game was first released many years ago, this was an incredible draw for people. Many games at the time focused on using a linear setup ala Super Mario Bros, so having a game where the player could just wander around to discover things was an engaging concept for players. To an extent, this still occurs even today, with many videogame players being more and more drawn to open-ended games because of the feeling of “doing what you want to”.

The reason Zelda benefited from its open-endedness was because of that ability to just do as you pleased. The area you started off in had a cave, which would naturally draw people to go inside and obtain the Wooden Sword, but if a player had beaten Zelda a few times, they had the ability to skip getting the Wooden Sword entirely if they wanted. In fact, it is entirely possible to play the original Zelda without getting any sword at all.

However, Zelda's open-endedness comes at the price of making it into a very confusing game for new players, since newcomers are given no particular direction. While being given totally free reign is nice, it also means that there's no easy way to find out what to do next other than bumbling around. Some people refer to this conundrum as a “where-the-fuck-do-I-go-kind-of-game”, and it's a rather fitting moniker. New players are generally drawn to the cave with the Wooden Sword, of course, but after that they have no idea what to do next. This means that it's up to the player to choose what to do next, which can be a little too open for many people.

Zelda 1 does have some design choices that help to keep players on track through the game, of course – players can't access areas across water or across one-tile-wide gaps without the Raft or Stepladder, so said items obviously have to be found in areas you can get to without them. But most of the time, this simply isn't enough guidance for a greenhorn. Even then, it's easy for players, new or old, to end up lost and wandering around, trying to remember where they need to go next.

Perhaps most importantly about both games is that having to critique each one is much different from the other. In games like Zelda, where exploration is king, not knowing what to do or where to go is annoying, but understandable and perhaps even appealing in some vein. If you don't know where you're supposed to be going in a linear game like Mario, then something is deeply flawed with the game's level design, or its concepts as a whole.

Similarly, if a game utilizes open-endedness or exploration in its gameplay, it's important to make sure that the player can't back themselves into a corner and find themselves unable to complete the game because they did things “out-of-order”. There is leeway in this respect, as you can make the alternate orders self-contained and keep the beginning and end of the game the same, but it is still important to keep things flexible. How to do this can range from checking for glitches caused by doing things in one way or another, to avoiding certain types of level designs outright.


For a game that's mostly-linear but involves exploring buildings and other complicated structures, there's something decidedly blatant about slapping a straight line in front of the player during the lategame.

With all that said, here are some things to keep in mind when brainstorming linearity and open-endedness in regards to designing a videogame:

• What is the basic concept for the game you want to make? A game where a player explores a castle to save a princess can go either way. It can be an open-ended game where the player can explore the castle at their leisure, or it can be a linear game where the player treks through the castle level by level. Which way do you want your game to go?
• If you want your game to be open-ended, how big do you want it to be? Giving a player more and more world to explore means that you also create more and more potential for doing things out-of-order. Always keep in mind the multiple ways a player can play your game, and try your best to iron out bugs or glitches that may result from doing things in one way or another way.
• If you want your game to be linear, how should you design the levels so that they aren't tedious or confusing to players? How will you make it clear that the player needs to get from Point A to Point B? Perhaps certain stretches of level will be interrupted by a checkpoint that leads closer to the goal; how will you make these checkpoints stand out in such a way that makes players understand that “this is where I need to go”?

A while ago, Crazy Luigi and I have gone into a lengthy discussion about the state of parodies today, and how it correlates with the rise of viral videos. At the same time, HerrVarden and I were talking about the excess of poorly-executed shock humor, and how its main fault lies in being shocking for the sake of shocking. Upon combining these two discussions, we have composed a three-part project article on modern humor.
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Crazy Luigi

In the world of YouTube, we have many different vehicles to try our tastes on. In addition to YouTube Poops and other forms of media like official songs and movies, we also have content generated by the user itself to try and get the user feel whatever they want to feel. Some videos could make a person agree on a certain point, while others could invoke a different reaction, such as sadness or anger. However, the one type of reaction that many try to create on YouTube is comedy, and while some of them have been successful in doing so, there are particular types of comedy that only a select few have created it with success. Some of those types of videos may have involved an animal like a panda bear or a chipmunk gopher squirrel prairie dog, but most of them involve us humans doing something that would probably occur in everyday life. However, there’s a part of us that sometimes questions why some videos like “Charlie Bit My Finger,” “Chocolate Rain,” “David After Dentist,” and “GINGERS DO HAVE SOULS!!” end up with more success than other videos that may be just as deserving of their successes, if not a lot more then that?

Many of their videos were intended to be of serious effect. In fact, when looking at Chris Crocker’s “Leave Britney Alone” against some of his older videos beforehand, his video about Britney Spears was the only one that had him taking his topic seriously, while the other videos he had made were in a not as serious (and even flamboyant) mood. The Angry German Kid (Der Echte Gangster as he used to be known on German video websites) was probably the only one that had initially made the video as a comedic one, and even that was due to him creating other videos that weren't quite as serious. However, when he had finally created a video that held a serious aura of damage (combined with the kid speaking in a language most viewers won’t really understand), it ended up creating a video that made for exploitation on many different areas. Hell, even PewDiePie ended up getting as famous as he was because his videos involving video games like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Happy Wheels, and many more that I can't talk about tend to hold some feelings of surprise that most YouTubers could relate to.

Of course, that doesn't really excuse some of the behaviors that we may find in their videos.

However, not everybody who does get successful on YouTube do it with the intent on initially being serious. There are users like Fred and the Annoying Orange that end up being as noted as they are because their intent is all about comedy. Those users are the ones that do hold the technology needed to use video cameras and angles to their advantage, and even use (likely) expensive video editing software like Adobe Premiere Pro or Sony Vegas. That’s not to say all YouTubers who have good equipment are equal to those guys; the Angry Video Game Nerd (formerly the Angry Nintendo Nerd) admitted his initial reviews of Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde became final projects in his college, and he ended up turning videos like those into serious reviews that can still make people laugh to this day. Hell, even the Nostalgia Critic went from expressing sadness over the Chicago Cubs missing the playoffs and over-exaggerated glee for the release of the last Harry Potter book (as well as editing a Duck Dodgers episode to have Darth Vader's voice in it) to holding his own with movie reviews that show why he doesn’t really like a certain film with intent to make the viewer laugh as well. With that said, some users on YouTube that have the technology and smarts to come up with these ideas do end up taking advantage of it, with plenty of them receiving the success that they wanted all along. However, the price of such success can be fleeting in certain cases.

Looking back at the South Park episode “Canada On Strike,” even though there were plenty of viral videos that I knew of that Trey Parker and Matt Stone were making fun of, not every type of video held quite an effect on our memories, such as that guy with the Tron suit and the Afro Ninja guy. That seems to be quite a problem with plenty of popular YouTubers; they tend to get the popularity that they may or may not have deserved, and in a few years’ time, we end up forgetting about them with only a few iotas of our brains reminding us that they even existed in the first place! Look at Fred (again) for example: he ended up using a squeaky high-pitched effect on his voice, which eventually had him become YouTube’s first user to even gain 1,000,000 subscribers. However, even after making three official movies and getting his own TV show, he nowadays seems to be forgotten by the public as someone that was once considered the King of YouTube. In contrast, look at Doug Walker; after getting himself banned on YouTube for a reason that I admittedly don’t know about, he decided to create his own website that started out with just him doing quick 5 second videos on some movies and his own Nostalgia Critic reviews, but later on grew with many different users getting worthwhile gain in the process. Despite having less success in the YouTube world, he ended up growing his website with more ambitious videos to where not only would he be successful (even after going into a brief retirement), but also some of his fellow partners like Linkara and the Cinema Snob would gain said success as well. In a way, looking at these two sides of the coin can show that even though one path may lead to a much more recognizable way into glory (or infamy), the other path may end up leading towards a more stabilized path towards success and glory that could not be had by just following certain trends that are rising in popularity.

DiscoGlacier

Unfortunately, this type of humor serves as a bad influence for film parodies, as it does not translate well between mediums. As film has a much higher barrier of entry than the internet, it is expected that its execution of comedy reflects this: what may be funny performed by Youtube amateurs can come of as juvenile coming from theatrical professionals. With Date Movie - the first film directed by Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg - being released a year about Youtube's foundation, there's a correlation between the style of humor found in viral video and the kind found in the two's works. Much like how a Youtube viewer can surf through dozens of unrelated videos in a single day, the duo sifts through pop culture references that have no relation to one another other than being current. This ultimately comes at the expense of the parody's quality, reducing its standards to the medium it takes inspiration from.

While "Leave Britney Alone" may have been funny in its original context, it is shoehorned and out-of-place in this scene.

What makes the spontaneous humor of viral video work is Arnheim's definition of authenticity: these moments capture real events, as they happen to real people or things. Such moments are candid, and need not writing or acting (unless the video is scripted); they are humorous primarily for being unusual yet believable occurrences. The camera remains in the periphery, observing as the events unfold on their own. This works the opposite for film, where everything placed in front of the camera is suited solely for the camera. Sets are constructed, lines are scripted, and actors are hired to say these lines, all to provide a pre-conceived image for the camera. This not only applies to comedy, but to every genre in film; the sole exception to this is Direct Cinema, a type of documentary that takes utmost precaution in preventing any interference with their subjects by the filmmakers. Otherwise, the film medium, by its very nature, is an artificial medium unable to capture the authenticity of viral video.

Viral videos can get away with lower quality (or the lack of any), as they are not only produced with less resources and by people with less comedic experience, but audiences can watch these videos for free. Films, on the other hand, are normally produced with budgets in the millions; even Disaster Movie was made with a budget of $20 million. Part of what makes film comedy funny is in how it can uphold the willing suspension of disbelief through adequate costuming, special effects; etc.: one should be convinced that Giselle is really being hit by a car, rather than a dummy look-alike. In addition, because more money is at stake, a greater understanding of comedy is necessary in order to do it justice. Comedy that can be seen on Youtube for free does not cut it when audiences are paying $8-12 a head for film tickets; the kind of talent deserving of the big screen is one which audience must be willing to pay for.

This is what leads into a greater problem with the modern parody: a lack of understanding of what makes comedy effective. Timing is overlooked, as jokes are telegraphed and are carried on too long. Causality is undermined, as slapstick happens with no real consequence; major characters recover from it and continue with the story uninterrupted, whereas bit parts simply disappear after the punchline has passed. Context serves no significance in these films as well, as many of the jokes hardly tie into the main theme of the films (what is a Napoleon Dynamite reference doing in a parody of date movies?). The greatest faults of these films, however, is the belief that the references are the punchline in themselves, when in fact they merely serve as vehicles towards one. The purpose of a parody is to bring to light the peculiar conventions of a work, genre; etc., then play them out in a humorous context. The modern parody only mocks their subjects at the most basic level, foregoing intricate comedy in favor of bare-bones references.

How exactly is this supposed to be a parody of Batman?

Something is wrong when online comedians can give out a more complex analysis of comedy than major studio films. I have learned a lot about the mechanics of comedy from Douglas Walker, in videos such as why Tom and Jerry succeeds in slapstick humor or why Master of Disguise fails at comedy; the way he critiques and analyzes comedy shows how much more elaborate an art form it is than throwing random things up at the screen hoping the audience would react. Perhaps what this really shows is the internet's potential for not only spontaneous humor, but also professional comedic talent that can far surpass even that of film. Then again, the general objective of film is not necessarily to provide the highest quality of entertainment, but to make the maximum profit possible, and the Seltzerberg duo has been profitable enough to leave a lasting impression on the 2000's image of "parody." Therein lies the peril of parody: the formula of feigned spontaneity simply makes too much money to forego.

HerrVarden

To understand good parody, you must understand good comedy. It's something that can entertain us and make us find the hilarious moments in even the craziest or benign of settings. It's only recently that we have really gotten into the whole "stand-up comedy" routine and seen it's ups and downs. There have been the one-liners and the overly long gags, the silly impressions to the bizarre experiences and many more. All of these acts have cemented comedians' true talent and opened doors to bigger and better projects. Some of them have had massive success while others have been the subject of the problems that modern comedy is facing. Oddly enough, both share at least one certain style of humor among each other. That being dark comedy.

For those of you who are unaware of what this is, dark comedy is basically joking about something that one shouldn't joke about, such as abortion, murder, mutually assured destruction and pedophilia. This is nothing new as in the past there have been jokes that have encompassed this sort of black humor. It was usually done in a more dry tone, as seen by the wit that is Oscar Wilde. Recently though, comedians such as Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Doug Stanhope, Louis C.K., Richard Pryor among many others have used this type of humor, not only to make people laugh at the more solemn subjects but to also pose a thought to them. When dark comedy is used right, it can make people wonder about the gravity of everything that surrounds them to a point of understanding that a greater subtext is underlined in the bit that a comedian does. These bits are usually presented with vile language and turn out to be blunt on what the point of the joke is. A part of what makes this sort of comedy work is by its presentation, which usually consists of shocking the audience either by the subject matter or further delivery of this joke. This is appropriately titled shock humor.

As you would imagine, there are also comedians such as Daniel Tosh and Anthony Jeselnik who don't use it properly. It's not to say that it's the lack of substance in their jokes is the problem; a lot of good comedians (even some of the ones mentioned here) tell good jokes but don't necessarily have any theme or grander purpose to the other than to say something funny. It's rather the actual jokes and the way that they are presented that is the problem. See, both of them seem to use the shock humor to get people to respond to them. In essence, that's what every comedian wants to do, but they simply do it because they want to offend. Both of them present their jokes in the most obnoxious manner. They have off-colored one liners or disgusting comments that some would find as unsettling and off-putting. For others though, their jokes simply come off as trite.

He shouldn't have apologized because he made a rape joke, he should apologize for making a bad joke.

In the time of the internet, the idea of shock humor is nothing particularly surprising. A majority of the in-jokes and general comments that are spewed on to the net are meant to repulse the viewer and some even try to do as much as they can to get you to respond for their own amusement. Those who have delved deeper and spent more time online have grown more immune to that style of humor and it takes a certain way of presenting it to amuse them. Simply going straight for the "Ooh, look at me, I'm offending you" button isn't going to cut it, no matter how repulsive it can be. It has to either be done in a very abstract manner, have some meaning to the joke or simply just be amusing enough that you forget about it's deplorable factor. That's precisely what parodies nowadays seem to forget.

Let's forget that the idea of parody relies on making fun of certain aspects that are present in a genre or film and that current parodies disregard that rule excessively. Let's take away that parodies nowadays are more focused on making terrible pop-culture references that only serve to date them further. They rely on shock humor on the simple basis that it is shocking. It's fowl, wretched, filthy, profane and nothing more. It's simply just there as if that's the only thing that sort of humor needs to be funny. Forget timing, presentation, and any other aspect that could make the joke work, farts are funny on their own. While some of us can't deny that they might be, most of us can agree that it's trashy and dull. Anyone really could make the joke and it does nothing to see it on the big screen in its lack of glory. If anything, it shows that you don't really need to put any effort in making a decent comedy film. Just slap a few crude bits here and there and it'll sell like hotcakes. Nevermind that it's blatantly insulting how low the common denominator has become, it's amusing, am I right? It completely misses the point of parody and instead becomes something that is ripe for mockery, not only of how abysmal it is but how it seems to be okay that you don't need real talent to make it in entertainment. You can be offensive all you want, but that isn't what makes great humor. It's what makes you into a petty troll.
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By succumbing to these pitfalls, parody has worked itself into a rut that can only be escaped with not only awareness, but talent. With the advent of technology, unique challenges have arisen such as the temptation to resort to spontaneous humor as a main source of comedy; others, like using shock value for the sake of shock, have sprouted from much deeper roots. Whether old or new, problems like these are not irreversible, and the parody can reclaim its former glory once again with the mutual agreement of both knowledgeable entertainers and discerning audiences.

(WARNING: The following article is actually pretty serious and contains massive spoilers from the film No Country for Old Men. If you don't want me to ruin the movie for you, or you are bored stiffless by mildly pedantic film analyses, I'd recommend skipping this one. If you are interested, welcome aboard! I'll be taking a close look at several movies--from structural and thematic viewpoints--over the next several months.)

Joel and Ethan Coen are clever filmmakers. They like to do stories that appear straightforward, but are actually complex and full of subversion. Most of their movies contain distracting, whimsical (or horrifying) antics, which allows for great spectacle. However, at the end of the day there's not much confusion--the Brothers are not exhibitionists, and those flashy tricks are only for fun. Rather, the Coens' films tend to show a focus on characters. They go in depth, and plot often becomes secondary. Such is the case in No Country for Old Men, one of the pair's strongest efforts. It contains several different plots, and each of them is centered on a specific character. The players in question are Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), an average man turned thief and fugitive, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a serial killer, and Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), an honest, aging man in a world filled with violence.

The movie is a gripping heist picture for the majority of its running time (following Llewelyn and Chigurh), but close to its end it transforms into a philosophical commentary about death. The shift occurs when Sheriff Bell usurps Llewelyn as the main protagonist, and the questions posed at the beginning—such as “who will take possession of the money,” and “will good or evil prevail”—become irrelevant. At that point only the Sheriff and the case before him remain, and the rest of the film is about his struggle with fear and fatigue, brought on by a lifetime of trying to beat crime.

More so than the other characters, Ed Tom Bell is conflicted and uncertain about where he stands. As such, he is the one that requires the most development. At the film's beginning he's somewhat in the background, trailing Chigurh's path of carnage almost half-heartedly, as though he doesn't truly believe it. As the body count rises he begins to get more involved, but eventually Llewelyn, the person he tries to protect, dies before he can make his final move. The Sheriff realizes afterwards that even with all his years of experience, he out of his depth, and he elects to leave the case unresolved. In the last few scenes, the Coens use imagery and metaphor to suggest an explanation for Sheriff Bell’s behavior, and in doing so they justify his final decision to abandon the case.

The film’s most vivid and insightful scene occurs after Llewelyn’s offscreen death - it is Sheriff Bell’s return to the scene of the crime. Late at night, when the motel is dimly lit, Bell backtracks and combs the murder site over again. Because he has already searched the room—and because he opts to go alone at an odd hour—his going back can only be an irrational choice, based on a gut feeling. When Bell pulls up to the motel in his patrol vehicle, he seems to be certain he will find something, perhaps an overlooked piece of evidence, or a clue to Chigurh’s (Javier Bardem) whereabouts. A closeup shows the Sheriff’s face full of apprehension and fear. He exits the vehicle reluctantly, almost choosing to stay behind and turn around. A series of medium shots show him ambling to the door. When he gets there he freezes, and the medium shots again give way to closeups, alternating between the maw of the severed lock (Chigurh’s trademark) and the Sheriff’s face, which becomes obscured by low-key lighting. The shadow stresses his uncertainty, and the image of the lock is a point of view shot that, when repeated, conveys nervous fixation. These closeups, however, also serve as a preamble to the next few shots, which show Chigurh lying in waiting.

The threatening images of Chigurh waiting behind the door are most likely false, but they have great significance. At first, they are actually difficult to make out. The shots are cast nearly in complete darkness, with one, narrow box of light and a small, glowing circle (to indicate the other side of the lock) providing the only illumination. In the first one, only the barrel of a gun and the edge of Chigurh’s mouth can be seen. In the second, the light from the lock is gone, and Chigurh’s eyes are wide and menacing. Between the two shots is another closeup on the sheriff’s face. This juxtaposition suggests that the two events (Chigurh waiting, Bell standing outside) are happening simultaneously, but more than likely the images of Chigurh are from a different point in time, or are entirely imaginary. There is also an image of the gun barrel pointing at the lock, but Chigurh would have to be directly behind the door for that to be real, and when Bell pushes the door open he finds the room completely empty.

The emptiness of the room is ultimately what defeats Sheriff Bell, and sends him away from crime scenes for the rest of his days. He stands backlit in the threshold after opening the door. Large cast shadows in his image spill across the wall and fill the frame as the camera pans. The superimposed silhouettes of Tom Bell are an ominous presence, but—like the impressions of Chigurh—they are only projections the Sheriff brought in with him. After the enormous buildup, all he finds in the room (discounting an unlocked window and a detached vent panel, which are evidence of the crime) is his own anxiety and imagination in effect. He denies it at first, but after he turns on the light and searches the bathroom, Bell has no choice but to admit he was wrong. He reaches the bitter conclusion that after years of handling tough cases, he no longer has a firm grasp of reality. There is no dialogue to communicate this, but his body language and expression speak loudly. When he discovers that he has fallen out of touch, he heaves a sigh and sits down in resignation. Only after that does he decide to give up the chase.

Later, in the film’s final scene, metaphor becomes the driving force for describing Ed Tom Bell’s condition. The dialogue detailing Ed Tom’s dreams, the mise en scene, and the background noise all suggest a growing nearness to death. The dream imagery is especially important. In Ed Tom’s second dream, he and his father ride on horseback through a snowy mountainside. Traditionally, snow is a symbol for death, and the father’s pushing past Ed Tom also seems to indicate a kind of passing on. Ed Tom understands, in this dream, that he and his father are headed to the same place, which can only be the next world. While he relates the strange tale he is pictured plainly in a medium closeup, with none of that surreal imagery accompanying him. However, through the window behind him there are two trees, one of them bent over but full of green, and the other shriveled and leafless. They are background objects, but they too represent the duality of life and death, as does a persistent ticking noise, audible from the beginning of the scene. The sound—presumably from an unseen clock—is a reminder of time. Ed Tom, in his old age and retirement, has little left, and the film reaches its conclusion as he accepts that.

By using figurative speech in dialogue, and making clever use of imagery, the Coens are able to lend convincing depth to their character. Ed Tom Bell is a stoic hero, unlike Llewelyn and Chigurh, so subtlety is appropriate for him. His sections favor existential drama over the explosive, violent conflict found elsewhere in the picture. In many ways Bell is the film's hero, but he never triumphs; instead he backs down and wises up. The hallucinatory crisis in the motel and the icy wasteland found in the dream both imply that Bell is ready to move on, and, like so many other clever turns in the movie, they are wonderful, expressive vehicles for the Coens’ imaginations. It is interesting to note, however, that Bell's mental dilemma makesNo Country For Old Men's resolution somewhat anticlimactic. Indeed, by the end, larger issues such as good and evil have fallen by the wayside. This is because the film’s emphasis is not general; instead, the Coen Brothers decide to focus on what they do best – character study, with a touch of the cerebral and bizarre.

Thanks for reading! There will be more like this--although perhaps some of them will be more fun--in the near future. Stay posted for more.

Star Fox 2 is, for lack of a better word, infamous. Planned, designed, developed, and ready for release during the waning days of the Super Nintendo, it was abruptly canceled at the last minute to pave way for a newer game on a newer console (Star Fox 64), becoming somewhat of a holy grail for unreleased games. When a ROM of a test copy was leaked onto the internet, there was a call to action, and soon enough Aeon Genesis released a patch for the ROM that fixed some small bugs (removing debug functions from normal gameplay, for example) while also translating the game into English. The game became well-known around the internet for being not only practically finished and playable, but also being an excellent, engaging and fun game in its own right.



Some years later, a new entry in the Star Fox franchise was released for the Nintendo DS: Star Fox Command. This game was notable for being quite similar to the unreleased 2, sharing many design details with it while also building on them to go in its own direction. However, despite the two games' similarities, Command's reception ranged from being mediocre to being reviled for various reasons, and the game is consistently the least liked of all the Star Fox games (except perhaps Adventures, but that game is another can of worms entirely). So what this article comes down to is trying to dig into both games to answer the question: what does Command do differently from 2 to earn such criticism? And, in opposition, what does 2 do to make itself much better than Command?

To get into the nitty-gritty, an explanation of both games' basics are in order.

Star Fox 2 and Star Fox Command share an injection of both turn-based and real-time strategy aspects into the tried-and-true formula of flying around in ships and shooting at enemy fighters. Unlike the other games in the series, where you progress through a series of on-rails levels, 2 and Command have a more free-roaming feel, letting you guide your characters along a map screen to take on squadrons of enemy fighters, enemy bases or battleships, missiles, and so on and so forth however you please. Since the playable characters have different aspects to their ships, keeping in mind your strengths and weaknesses is important.

The goals of the games are roughly equivalent as well: you have a home base (Corneria in 2, the Great Fox in Command) that you must defend from harm, lest you risk getting a game over due to its destruction. To win the game, you must sweep all the enemy fighters from the map, culminating in a boss battle to end the mission proper. Since events on the map happen in real-time, even when you're in a skirmish and not flying around the map screen, pressure is placed on the player to manage their team and to pick their fights wisely.

However, beyond that is when the two games start to diverge into different areas. To make these differences clearer, I'll be tackling them one at a time, talking about how they work in both games and where they go right or wrong.

The first change is the way characters work, and while it might seem negligible at first glance, it has wider repercussions. When you begin a mission in 2, you can choose two of any six characters: Fox, Falco, Peppy, Slippy, Miyu and Fay. Fox and Falco have balanced ships, Peppy and Slippy are slower and more defense-oriented, and Miyu and Fay are fast and more about offense. Once you've chosen two characters, you're plunked on the map and can begin the game.


You can see the character differences, too. Helpful!

In Command, however, you start off only with Fox, and as you go through the game you slowly pick up more characters with their own unique properties to their ships. Once you've completed the game and gotten to the ending, you can start over at the beginning and take alternate paths in the game, potentially meeting other pilots.

What matters here is how the characters are implemented, and this ultimately unearths the biggest clash between both games. In 2, you choose two characters and are free to play the game immediately afterward, sticking with your two pilots for the rest of the mission. In Command, progression is much more like a role-playing game, getting more pilots to “join the party” as you go through missions. These design philosophies are ingrained deeply into both games: Star Fox 2 is designed as a single mission, while Command is much more like a role-playing strategy game.

The second difference ties into this quite neatly: it's how both games use their overworld map system alongside their standard “flying and shooting” gameplay.

2 has one single map for all missions, and each planet gets an altered layout depending on difficulty (and some planets don't show up at all on lower difficulties). Beyond providing an outlook of the map so the player can deliberate on what to do next, the map has no other bearing on gameplay. The flying and shooting doesn't change much either, but the all-range-mode planetside battles, as well as attacking the insides of battleships, also utilize a walker form of the Arwing, keeping things fresh. The dogfights don't last long, and the mission itself doesn't take long either (Normal mode can be completed in under half an hour if you're quick). Corneria, your home base, can be destroyed, but does have its own health meter – one missile will not destroy it outright, for example, meaning the player is allowed a few mistakes at the start.


See? You can see everything you need to here.

Command, however, seems to have some kind of strange love for its shiny new map, and goes out of its way to develop it throughout the game. In the beginning missions, there is not much to say about it: you attack bases and enemies. Later, however, new gimmicks emerge – things like missiles, areas that your pilots can't fly above, or the “fog of war” that covers enemy areas and can be scribbled away a little. The no-fly zones can take up a fairly large part of the map in some missions, which tends to have the effect of railroading the player into a single solution that works best. I rarely found myself in a position where I felt like I was actually strategizing, since trying to do things in my own way either led to me running out of time or getting the Great Fox shot down.

The flying and shooting is engaging at the start, with a similar "shoot down enemies" system, but involves finding specific enemies and collecting items they drop, as well as implementing a hard time limit on each and any battle. This can be engaging at first, but there's never anything remarkably new or interesting added to it to keep it fresh, meaning it gets tedious very fast. Lastly, the Great Fox is the opposite of 2's Corneria – it has no health bar, and a single missile can destroy the Great Fox and end your mission.

The player is afforded no cushion in terms of their strategy, and oftentimes isn't afforded any time to really strategize at all, leading to the map sections of the game becoming repetitive and samey as well. Both the flying-and-shooting gameplay and the map sections start off strong and basic but both end up boring as the game continues. One lacks focus and development, never throwing a curveball at you or adding new ideas into the mix beyond "here's a new pilot and a new ship". The other has so much focus and development, despite not being the actual meat of the game, that it becomes less of a strategy game and more of a "find the way to solve this map puzzle" game.


Despite the similarities to the map above, adding no-fly zones and fog turns it into a mess.

Command's greatest failing is the focus it places on being a strategy game, while forgetting to find ways to keep the meat of its gameplay fresh. For all the ways the overworld map changes over the course of the game, the flying and shooting ends up repetitive and boring, which guts the game from the inside out. Star Fox 2, however, is the opposite; its map is never heavily developed, but serves its purpose, and the flying and shooting is fast enough to keep itself from getting boring, while also adding enough new abilities to toy with, like the walker form and the all-range style of gameplay. 2 is a Star Fox game with strategy elements, while Command is a strategy game with Star Fox elements.

The most obvious change between both games, however, is the implementation of a story. 2 has a very basic, very unobtrusive plot: Andross wants revenge. That's it. Occasionally during the game, typically upon passing a benchmark and returning to the map, he'll cut in with a short transmission and may send in more troops or a boss enemy. The only cutscenes that occur are an introductory scene and the ending – thus leaving the actual gameplay uninterrupted aside from the short transmissions. There is never a point where the story drives the fast pace into the ground.

Command? I likened it to a role-playing game earlier, and the comparison still stands. Before missions, between missions, even during missions sometimes, characters will cut in to spout off dialogue. During missions this tends not to be intrusive, but it becomes an issue between the missions, where characters will blab at each other incessantly, taking enough time to shoot any possibility of pacing in the foot. Even if the quality of the writing was good (and it isn't), the way these story scenes break up the game into chunks hurts the experience.


Falco says what we're all thinking.

When summed up, the reason 2 fares better than Command comes down to the aforementioned design philosophies. The Star Fox franchise's main draw is the fact that the gameplay is brisk and running through the games won't take hours and hours. Running through Star Fox 2 will never take more than an hour or two at the most, and its pick-up-and-play nature adds to its replay value. Running through Command can take hours and hours, and replaying it to get a different ending (out of nine) is ultimately muddled by the fact that playing the game is too long and too boring for most people to bother.

For all the influence that Star Fox 2 had on Command, the team working on it somehow missed what made 2's mixture of genres work so well. Command seemed to try as hard as it could to add a new dimension to the familiar Star Fox gameplay that it ended up focusing too much on its new features, the opposite of what its predecessor did. Where Command is tedious, 2 is engaging; where Command is extravagant, 2 is simplistic; and where Command is jarring, 2 is smooth. Despite being so similar, one game crashes and burns, while the other soars.

Crazy Luigi's Pick: "[YTP] Hooved Females Ruin Spike's Life" by Alfonzopancakes & Maple Pony


There are sources that have been over-utilized, underutilized, or even never been touched on by the YouTube Poop community that probably should be. This collaborative YouTube Poop helps make an underutilized source shine out as a beacon of what could be done to make a relatively new source become a great source for people to work on. While this month was one of the more harder months for me to decide upon since there were plenty of YouTube Poops that should have made it on the list (and probably already on it), time and time again, I've ended up coming back to this one because of its more unique stance on tackling a source that gained a controversial view over the months up until and including its release. Regardless of what you may view the source material under, both Alfonzopancakes and Maple Pony tackle it with many effects that hold something to enjoy for everybody. Both people have simple differences in how they tackle a source, yet they both find a way to compliment each other in a special sort of way that doesn't really overlap each others' worth. With this collaboration, many different editing features show up that give the video more variety and life that I only see in YouTube Poops in rare occasions. While the only faults that I might have with it are the collaborative intro and the over-excessive censor noises during one particular scene, the strengths that it shows more than make up for it, especially when looking at its last minute and a half.

Tofucakecan's Pick: "The Ambiance Collab" Hosted by Jallerbo/Jallershy

Once again I find myself writing about that lovely gray area of Youtube Poop known as the “ambient poop”. This month, I present for your viewing pleasure “The Ambiance Collab” hosted by Jallerbo/Jallershy. Fifteen poopers were tasked with making a poop in this experimental genre, and what resulted was an 18 minute odyssey of bizarre sounds, lush colors, and mind bending effects. As you may expect, there are very few jokes or typical poop fodder to be found. Its worth noting how differently each participant interpreted the idea of an “ambient poop”. No two videos are quite the same either in their structure or direction.

It’s easy to find something to like about every entry in this collab. I found myself particularly entranced by Sid 1325. The simplicity of the whole thing is just lovely. It’s little more than a background of effects (looks like gradient map and medium among others) and mirrored abstract shapes flickering in time with a trance-like soundtrack. It’s a similar story with the entry from stretch11poops. This one is just a still image layered several times with the familiar music of Donkey Kong Country being altered behind it. Yet I kept watching it again and again.

And then there’s SaturdayNightCleaner’s Entry at 13:50. This guy will have his own sub-genre of Youtube Poops one day. He’s created something here that will have you glued to your computer screen in awe while you wonder what you’ll see next and try to comprehend what you just witnessed. This is the sort of video that should be watched at night, with the lights off and no other distractions around. Let it suck you in and tickle your senses, and then when its over, hit replay. You know you wanna.

Cantfly(man)'s Pick: "How the Grirch Borrowed Hannukkah" by Dikekike/KroboProductions


KroboProductions is one of the first people I followed when I first got into watching these videos, and during this one, one video that he released back in early 2008 was Green Eggs and Eggs. To this day it's probably one of my favorite YouTube Poops ever, so when Krobo went on to make a spiritual successor to his previous Dr. Seuss video by manipulating the classic "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" special was guaranteed to entertain me the second that I clicked on the video. His patented strange sentence mixing is all over the place in this video and the way he splices random parts of the Grinch song into certain scenes gets a chuckle out of me each time. To keep it short and simple, it's just classic Dikekike in a nice condensed video, and a nice return-to-form for him from his earlier stuff.

 
If you feel like we may have overlooked or missed out on a favorite YouTube Poop throughout this month (and that's certainly a reasonable belief here), please post a comment talking about the YouTube Poop and why you think it's your favorite in this month.

Welcome to a new recurring segment that we in the Writing Staff have coined "The Hall of Frame". What is that, you ask? Well, simply put, I felt given our site's history with finding and tearing apart several of the funny/bad/forgotten cartoons of yesteryear that it would be fun to look back and compile some of the most interesting, funniest, or flat-out badly drawn animation frames from the video sources that we've all come to love so much. Keep in mind that one of your favorite frames may not be in this particular batch, which is why we'll eventually revisit certain sources after a certain amount of time passes. So without further ado, let's dive into the first show, or rather, shows, to be featured in this segment: The Mario Cartoons.

It's no secret to anybody that has been involved with this site that these cartoons are notorious for having some of the laziest animation of any show. I don't think it's possible to watch through one scene without noticing at least one glaring animation blemish, whether it be weird, out of place, or just plain terrible-looking. For this reason, we decided to dig through these shows first in order to find some of the strangest frames of the bunch. We're most likely leaving out many other golden ones, since there are just that many infamous frames, so hopefully the ones we'll be showcasing will be among the cream of the crop.

SkyBlueFox's Pick:

If you're an animator in the business, there will almost inevitably come a time where you're working on something and end up telling yourself "I do not care. I simply do not care." This isn't an inherently negative or lazy thing to say, mind you - perhaps you and your other animators on a team are already working hard as is, and you simply can't muster the effort to make something that's otherwise-negligible look nice and neat because you're got a deadline looming over your head. It happens in plenty of media, both good and bad, and while it's perhaps not a tenet to live by, it's something that is at least understandable. It's a time-saving animation trick, from what I can tell.

The Mario cartoons often seemed to have that sort of thing happen during their runs, and while it's always fun to pick out wonky frames out of the many Mario episodes, I think it's rather notable to bring this frame up in particular as an example of what I mean. Take a peek into some other animated shows and try and see if you can find a similar frame to this one; a crowd scene where the people look notably less detailed or it simply looks less polished. I've seen it happen in a lot of other shows. It's perhaps lazy, but it's also a signal of the points when the animation team was already pushed to their limits as it was and couldn't bother to go any further with some things.

The reason this seems so interesting to me is because of the fact that, as anyone could probably tell you, the Mario cartoons' animation was quite poor. There were plenty of animation goofs and screw-ups that were inexcusably blatant. Therein lies the issue: the art-color-animation team was making plenty of actual mistakes in their work on the show, and they still felt compelled to lazily slap together frames like this for otherwise-unimportant scenes. So what that ultimately makes me wonder is this: what happened? Was the team so massively overworked that they used a typical time-saving trick and still had mistakes show up? Did the team not care enough at all to bother putting effort into the show? Was the team just not skilled enough in general? Things like this can be overlooked if the rest of the show looks nice and polished, but the Mario cartoons weren't. So what was the deal?

HerrVarden's Pick:



Very few people know that am I actually quite the art connoisseur. I've seen it all from Nighthawks to the Persistence of Memory. I know the Van Goghs, the Rockwells, the Tanguys and I've carefully gazed upon their work and find within them that majestic beauty that they behold. Why do I share such information when the commoner considers that the animators of this DiC classic are not even worthy of kissing the feet of Jackson Pollock? By no means is it to undermine the skills presented by the animators, my comment towards my knowledge of art is merely an innocuous fact. If anything, such a background is what has been able to drive my careful consideration for the frame on which to elaborate on. The show has a fair amount of moments that one could divulge into, but I believe that the one that I have chosen is the most adequate one of them all.

If my memory serves me right, this was taken from the episode where Milli Vanilli made an appearance. That detail alone is what sparks the true genius of this frame. For one, it explains why the girls are screaming and the two Mario Brothers are covering their ears. That's simple enough, but if you look at the anatomy of the two women in the foreground, you notice that they resemble the style of Edvard Munch's "The Scream". The extended jaw and grotesque expression was to signify the anguish and volume that a scream would possess in the original painting, but under the context of the fanatics, it shows how controlled they are by their obsession with the band, almost as if they are under the influence of Satan. Each of the three fanatics' expressions shows the effects of the Devil impacting their lives. The left one appears to be more possessed, making her the one to be most feared, the middle one has become lunatic from the powerful will of Lucifer and the right exemplifies the emptiness that a slave of Hell eventually obtains. Notice also how the Mario brothers are wearing tuxedos rather than casual attire, indicating that they are more refined. Their juxtaposition indicates much more that simply a clash of class and sophistication, but rather how they choose to accept the holiness rather than succumb to the power of the devil. After all, they are Italian, who are not only devout Catholics but also hold the most sacred of religious institutions, the Vatican. So you see, this is much more than a frame. It is a masterpiece hidden amongst a whole slew of other frames that fastly flutter to create the wonderful effect of animation.

Crazy Luigi's Pick:

When it comes to finding a picture worth a thousand words, sometimes it takes simplistic things to make it elevate towards such a result. At first glance, this picture doesn't really look like it warrants a place in the Super Mario Bros. cartoons Hall of Fame when compared to images like the doll-like crowd or the close-up of the girls cheering for Milli Vanilli. In fact, you could make a case that it's one of the least detailed frames in the entire Super Mario series since aside from Mario and Luigi, there's just the sky and what appears to be the hull of a boat that doesn't look fully finished or displayed yet. However, it's by looking at it a bit closer that you start seeing some special goodies that truly make it feel like a frame to literally frame within a museum.

This episode came off of "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show," which is a more common, yet less talked about Mario cartoon when it comes to Hall of Frame worthy inductions. While it might not sound like much now, just the fact that it came from more "humble beginnings" makes it something to talk about. Still, that's not what I want to really talk about here. What makes this frame so great is how despite both of the Mario brothers have somewhat similar reactions, they both have differently awkward ways of looking at each others heads. While Mario may not look so bad at first, it's by looking closer at his head where you notice the things that start making it noteworthy; the plumber hat looking closer to a derby hat, detached eyebrows that look painted on the bottom of his hat, the eyes suspiciously looking similar to Pac-Man, and probably the most notable part of it all... the missing left part of his neck. However, it's through veering at the right side of the picture that the picture goes from awkward to Hall of Frame worthy.

As usual, the racist Luigi helps take this picture over the top and out of the frying pan. While forgiving Luigi's Pac-Man eyes and how his hat doesn't really look all that hat-like for a minute, the cream of the crop comes from the head that he brings out here. To keep it short and simple, if Arnold was an intentional football head from the horizontal point of view, then Luigi almost unintentionally represents that in a vertical point of view. However, it's through looking at it more that makes you wonder some things about it, such as whether the drawer was the first to think of Luigi's head as a banana or what really influenced the show to draw his head like that and give them the okay on it. Still, it's through the proper disdain of Mario and Luigi that helped make the picture more over the top than when I first saw it.

Nozdordomu's Pick:

What’s so funny about this frame? There’s nothing glaringly wrong with it. True, the outlines on the band members’ hair aren’t very detailed, and they almost have the exact same expression (never a good idea in animation). Still, there are worse looking frames out there. There’s just something really funny about this picture that’s difficult to place. I’ll take a stab at it.

It’s the expression. In the episode, Rob and Fab make those faces right before the Mario brothers start playing a terrible rendition of “Girl You Know It’s True” – so bad it’s actually painful to hear – so it’s easy to understand why they look worried. But that’s the thing. They look too worried. Is bad music really a good enough reason to abandon all hope and stare into space in utter despondency? Jesus Christ, Milli Vanilli, you don’t have sickle-cell anemia or anything. Lighten up. You can almost hear them saying "Zis is terrible" to themselves. But what's so terrible? You can make up any reason for why Rob and Fab look like that. I like to think that they made those faces when the whole lip-synching business came out, or when their song skipped at a live show, or when they realized that they had been tricked into starring in a third-rate cartoon based on a videogame. I guess some publicity isn’t good after all.

This frame isn’t too poorly drawn, but for some reason the little things stick in the mind. It could be the shitty outlines, or the awkward arrangement of the scene (where are they standing?), or the dumb-looking hats, or the dumber-looking shirts, or the episode context, or the fact that Rob and Fab appear to have unusually large biceps. For me, the goofy expressions seal the deal. I’m still wondering what was going through their heads at that moment. Poor Milli Vanilli.

Mashu's Pick:

So, admittingly, I'm not much of an animator, or, hell, an artist at all, really. I think it takes a certain desire, an almost genetic devotion built deep within a person, for them to truly become appreciative of the pictorial art, let alone devise the tools at his or her disposal to build themselves up to achieve great skill. Because of that, true genuine criticism of a particular artistic media is, for the most part, reserved for those that are acquainted in its many depths. Yet, there are certain instances where a given painting or an animation are so atrociously bad, that even those with little to no skill whatsoever can poke out at the flaws like a professional.

In this case, we're given a frame from our beloved Super Mario World. Now, already, from just looking at it, several comedic errors can be seen; for one, Mario's head is absolutely giant (or is that his hat?), and he appears to be intently breaking a wooden stick with his mind, from the looks of it, while Luigi and Yoshi stare at him in bewilderment like he's some sort of madman. However, looking deeper into it reveals even more mistakes, each more hilarious than the next.

For one, Yoshi's body composition is subtly, yet still awkwardly, off place in a sort of skewed bent position. He seems to be much taller, and his arms are way lower than they should be, not to mention that his hands are in a flaccid position, giving an almost flamboyant, “oh no you di'int” attitude to it, completely contradicting the rest of his body language. Luigi's hair seems to be streaking down at the back, making it look like he has much longer hair than he does. The worst offender, however, is his body position. He's locked in a very default-ish demeanor, with even his hands completely flat. Because of this, however, it almost looks like he's suspended in midair, and much larger than Mario. Seriously, look at it for a while; once you see it, it's impossible not to see it.

Hell, once you get right down to it, everything in this frame is impossible to not see. It's the epitome of poor animation, and such is the reason why I chose this hilarious and “nonsensical without context” apathetic magnum opus. Kudos to you, Super Mario World animators, you lazy ol' fucks.

Mushrooms's Pick:

You know this fuckin' song frame. The raised eyebrows, crossed eyes, mouth hidden by the mustache. Just look at that goofy face. That's not your regular goofy, this is full-on Goof Troop levels of goofy here. Every classic SMW poop has this shot, and for a good reason: he looks like Mario said "you know what, fuck it, just fuck it", took a rusty faucet from a plumbing project, and used it to give Luigi a full frontal lobotomy while the trees in the background mock him for his loss of mental prowess all while he's mentally incapable of comprehending the trees' messages of condescension. Luigi's goofy expression here earned this particular shot of him the name of "Retard Luigi".

There's hardly any explanation as to why he looks like this. Luigi turns back into a human after being an egg, he's told that he was an egg, makes that face, and upon realizing he just made himself look like a total schmuck on international television, and lifts his finger with a nervous look on his face that says "oh god I hope nobody saw that", accompanied by the 1-up sound as the cherry on this awkwardly-assembled cake. The funniest thing is how this wasn't some slip up like that piece of the storyboard showing up for a split second in the Cave Christmas episode, oh no, they drew Luigi as a dumbass-lookin' muthafucka on purpose and slapped him in there, possibly as a symbolic representation of their intended audience.

Another thing I love about this frame in addition is how stupid the trees look along with Luigi. They look almost like kindergarten scribbles, but you know what? The animators knew what they were doing. To capitalize on Luigi's dumbass expression here, they made the trees look equally stupid to create one harmonious choir of stupid, echoing all throughout the second or so this frame makes its mark with the viewers.
Cantfly's Pick:

Yeah yeah, you all saw this coming, didn't you. But what can I say? How would I ever be able to take part in an article like this and not touch upon this golden frame of Luigi goodness? So let's go ahead and touch upon it together. Come on, you know you want to.

In order to cut to the chase, I'm just going to come out and say it: that is Luigi's ass. The artist that worked on this particular shot felt like adding in the detail of Luigi's gigantic ass cheeks bursting through the seat of his pants. There are plenty of cartoons that set prominent focus on a particular character's buttocks (Robotnik from AoStH, Red Guy from Cow & Chicken, etc) but in those shows it was clearly done intentionally for the sake of comedic effect and exaggeration to make those characters look even sillier than they already are. However, this is the Super Mario World cartoon that we're talking about here; absolutely nothing about the show is intentionally ridiculous enough for this to make any sense. So what exactly was the motivation behind focusing so much on an Italian plumber's dirty asscrack for the handful of seconds that this was onscreen? And why is it that, on top of this, Luigi and the Fire Sumo look like they're about to shit out their internal organs? It's all just so bizarre, and it may take a long time before anyone can ever find a true answer. But until then, Mama Luigi's Ass will remain the Eighth Wonder of the World. Step aside, King Kong.

(Artist's rendition of a man who looks similar to Jacob D. Seslek)

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. I am here today to talk to you about one of literature's greatest belated underground achievements. As you are aware about, Jacob D. Seslek was rushed to the hospital after having a heart-attack and died shortly afterwards. Seslek was known for having tenacity in the writing world, having 15 novels under his belt along with 20 collections of short shories, ranging from 15 to 30 per collection. His topics were usually varied such as his science-fiction western piece Forty Soldiers In Saturn, his satirical horror short series Cthulhu In Congress and his steampunk quantum picaresque antinovel Ticking Sideways In Paris. Since then, his most recent book The Man Who Shot Himself Backwards has been receiving countless accolades, being named "a new modern classic", and is currently being created into a movie starring Nicholas Kim Coppola as the lead protagonist. After reading over his acclaimed masterpiece for the seventh time, I remembered that I had met with the man for an interview. In fact, I was one of the only few, if not the only interviewer that managed to talk to him before he passed away. For your consideration, I give you an interview with Jacob D. Seslek.

Thank you for being able to talk to me on such short notice.

Huh? Who the hell are you?

I'm here to interview you, Mr. Seslek.

What, right here? Don't you think that's a bit stupid?

Now, now, I'm the one who supposed to be asking you the questions.

I get that, but can't this wait?

I feel that it would be better for the both of us if we did it right now.

Ugh, fine. Waiter, get my friend here the cheapest thing on the menu and a glass of tap water.

You sure know how to treat your guests.

You're lucky that I could even afford that, buster.

So, please tell me a little about yourself.

Well, alright. I was born in Oxnard, California on August 2, 1966.



Ah, you have the same date as James Baldwin and the year of J. J Abrams. Interesting how both seem to have some influence in your work.

I don't know much about either one of them, but okay. I grew up in a suburb, knew a lot of the people around the area. My best friends were Roderigo and Jerome, we played a lot of basketball and eventually played a little bit of NES when we were older. I had a few girlfriends in high school but nothing really stable. My parents were your typical sort, you know, kind but a pain in the ass when they needed to be. My old man would sometimes be a bit more of a pain, but without him I wouldn't be where I am now.

Fascinating. Did your father's abuse factor into when you wrote about the first boss of the protagonist in The Man Who Shot Himself Backwards who would belittle him but eventually give him a substantial paycheck at the end of each week?

Not really, but now that you mention it, I guess so. There's not much else to that piece of sh-

What about when you spoke about the challenges that races had to face with breaking through society's stigmas, particularly with the friends of the protagonist struggling so hard to achieve their goals?

My friends just had a little trouble with their goals. Roderigo really wanted to get good grades, and Jerome wanted to work with the community. I don't see what so crazy about that.

How about the impact that one of the love interests has on the protagonist, sending him into a spiral of excessive consumerism when he ultimately fails to be with her? I particularly liked the line "he felt as if all that was left was a hollow chamber filled with cold pieces that shattered when he held onto them" before he descends into madness.

Uh...you mean when he had to restock his fridge after he broke up with her? I was just talking about ice in that scene.

When did you start writing?

I was doing that since I was in 9th grade. I really grew to be fascinated by all those authors, from Bradbury to Fitzgerald, so I went along with it. Sure as hell was better than anything else that I had in mind...at least that's what I like to thin-

Is that the reason that The Man Who Shot Himself Backwards came to be, as a statement of resentment over a corporate position?



What? No! Having a desk job is aw-

Awful, I know. It's so powerful how you portray such a message, particularly with the protagonist waking up in a bed soaked by whiskey, turning the alarm away as he catches a faint reflection of what he's become.

You...you do know that he was hosting a party and someone spilled it on there? Plus, anyone waking up after such a crazy night isn't gonna have fun listening to that alarm.

Then how do you explain the reflection?

Someone drew dicks on his face, that's not something you want to stare at.

Wasn't that supposed to signify his possible bisexual nature?

How in the world did you come up with such a conclusion?!

The way the protagonist talks to his African-American friend alludes to this a lot

He saves the guy's life! Maybe it's a bit too much, but you treat the guy that does this with a shitload of respect. There is nothing else to it!

Isn't that counter-intuitive to your progressive message of the inclusion of the world and breaking away from the norm? Or were you using such an approach to deliver an inverted message as biting satire?

Oh god, the fucking book is just about a guy who has a few bad days working at a cubicle! We all have shitty work weeks!

Why do you hold such an aggressive attitude with the public?

Are you being serious right now? You think I'm fucking J.D Salinger here?

Well, clearly you must have it if you're treating me with such scorn.

I'm treating you with such scorn because you're wasting my time about a book I wrote so I could pay my goddamn rent. I spent two, maybe three weeks shitting this out, whilst the rest of my work ends up in the back of libraries. Where's any discussion about Silent Segregations, a book dealing with urban racism? How about a little praise for the stories in Clutter In Blotters where I spent months making sense of trips I had on LSD. Or about The Fist With An Eye, the epic where people are stuck in modern retelling of Mayan myths? Do you know how much fucking research I had to connect Xbalanque to a man who watches CCTV? No, of course not. But you know what, I wouldn't mind that so much if you at least got what The Man Who Shot Himself Backwards was really about.




You mean to tell me that there is an alternate interpretation of a story you wrote?

Goddamn it, it was about striving forward, even if shit looks bad. At first I called the book that because it was cool, but then when I wrote the end, it made sense. Instead of the gun killing him, it just threw him back to the wall. And when he is knocked back, he sees his tie and sighs, looking to the ceiling, realizing that eventually it would be all right. Sure, his acts almost got him fired, but he still had good times and he recognizes that.

I thought that scene was him finding how inevitable it was for him to escape a career he hated and having to eventually march for-

Shut up! Look, I don't know why you came here, but I hope that neither you nor The Man Who Shot Himself Backwards become household names.

(This interview was conducted by the Pulitzer-Prize winning literary critic, Andrew Nonimus)

In the five, almost six years I've been going to YouChew, I've watched poop change quite a bit. The forums, too, have changed – the word “poop” was dropped from the name, after all, though there's still subforums dedicated to the medium – since my early days at the beginning of 2008. Lots of things happened, both related to poop and not: the ever-infamous War on AIDS, the departure of Conrad Slater and the rise of Rabbitsnore and TINS, the common style of poops changing through the years, so on and so forth. While I readily admit I don't know how YTPs are thought of by new members joining solely for the poop subforum, for those of us with a lot of time under our belts it's worth thinking back to how things used to be, both to appreciate how far we've come and to chide our past selves for things we may regret doing.

One of the things that I feel is often rather “overlooked”, so to speak, is the advent of flash poops and their original pioneers. Flash poops aren't a dime a dozen nowadays, but they're still rather common (and some of them are very, very good), and it's a little hard to imagine how much vitriol they received during the early days. Granted, the oldest flash poops were fairly crude endeavors in terms of production, but the small handful of poopers who made them paved the way for what they are today. There was one flash pooper in particular who I ended up heavily involved with (albeit in an indirect sense) and he's probably one of the better-documented of the bunch: a little account that was named Titleinlarge503.

Titleinlarge503, more colloquially known as Titleinlarge or TiL, started off as all of us did, a fresh-faced fellow who had made a couple simple poops at his outset. Specifically, he released a poop in 2007 (late that year, if I recall) called "Princess Spaghetti and the King's Revenge". It took a more story-centric approach than your typical '07 poop, but unlike, well, nearly any other poop at the time, Titleinlarge made liberal use of MS Paint and edited still shots to add the earliest kind of “flash poop” visuals to his work. The Princess Spaghetti videos spanned three parts, and thankfully reuploads of all three can be found archived on YouTube.



Princess Spaghetti in-and-of-itself isn't the best example of what Titleinlarge was really known for (they were his first pieces of work, after all), but just watching the first part for a bit gives you a good idea of why Titleinlarge was so controversial in 2007. Truly edited frames only show up briefly (the King barfing into his goblet, and the shot of Link frowning instead of smiling), but part 2 takes things further very quickly, with Zelda throwing a mirror into the King's face, the King getting Pikachu cheeks, Mario pointing up the pipe, and so on and so forth. Perhaps the most famous bit of the Princess Spaghetti videos is the very flashy Pokemon battle in part 3 which relies entirely on edited images strung together. Despite not actually being flash, someone coined the term flash poop, and the moniker stuck.

Calling this process “unprecedented” might sound like an exaggeration, but it's the best way I can describe it; before Princess Spaghetti, I'm not sure the term “flash poop” even existed, much less found itself dropped into the limelight. Even now, on the reuploaded videos, you can find commenters from four or five years ago happy as clams about this sort of thing. Does it look crude now? Certainly. And it probably looked pretty unpolished then too, but it was new and unique, despite the fact that it used sources deemed as overused in 2007. Titleinlarge's videos inspired a slew of new flash poops made by people wanting to try their hand at this new genre, and so flash pooping got its start.

It was around this time that I joined YouChew, and I quite clearly recall the forums being decidedly unenthusiastic about this new, flash poop thing that the kiddos on YouTube were getting up in arms about. Keep in mind that this was smack-dab in the middle of the War on AIDS era. Titleinlarge found himself propelled into popularity in both senses of the term – his videos were praised by many people, but just as many people were also critical of the encroaching style (or, to put it bluntly, he was blindly praised and blindly flamed). YouChew, of course, was one of his greatest detractors to an almost comical degree. I kid you not, when I posted a comment on his channel telling him to ignore the forums and do what he wanted to, said comment was screencapped and posted as a thread titled “we have a traitor in our midst”.

As time in the new year of 2008 passed, Titleinlarge decided to make a new flash poop series, inspired by a friend of his named link123456, who had busied himself created the "God Luigi" videos (and since the two were friends, fans of Titleinlarge also became fans of link123456 and vice versa). God Luigi had upped the ante in terms of early flash pooping, forgoing the crude paint programs and instead using aftereffects software, and Titleinlarge procured the same (or at least a similar) software that link123456 used. However, instead of Luigi, Titleinlarge used a character that was just starting to get popular, a character so young that his use hadn't been targeted by actual companies at that point. And so, "God Rabbit" was born.



God Rabbit was notably shorter than the Princess Spaghetti videos; the latter being about twenty minutes, while the former only seven. However, thanks to the far better equipment at his disposal, Titleinlarge made up for this by going over-the-top with his work, mixing both frames edited in paint programs along with aftereffects and sentence-mixing. What little animation there was generally became more fluid and flashy, with an insulted doctor blowing Carmen's face clean off and then flying to Asia, his balloon kicking up a small explosion and smoke as it lands. What made this so exciting for people, Titleinlarge's popularity aside, was the fact that the aftereffects looked more "professional" than other videos. It was far more exciting to see a high-tech explosion and smoke effect instead of something that anyone could easily cook up in MS Paint. This became Titleinlarge's signature style for the rest of his time online.

God Rabbit became extremely popular, eclipsing even its inspiration, and once again Titleinlarge found himself deciding to make more of these God Rabbit videos. He made a second one soon after the first, and began to work on a third one before his account suddenly closed. The apparent explanation is that he closed his account himself, due to the fact that his aftereffects software started to not work properly in the middle of making the video. In hindsight, it makes me wonder if Titleinlarge was making the videos because they were fun to make, or if he was making the videos because they made him popular (and thus not making videos would make him not-popular or somesuch). Either way, his account was closed, his fans went into an uproar, and eventually one particular fan would make his own "God Rabbit Part 3" and close off the saga.

Of course, this wasn't the true end of Titleinlarge, as any forum veteran could probably tell you if you jogged their memory. In fact, I'd say that his videos were small fry compared to what would happen next.

Titleinlarge eventually fixed his aftereffects software and reappeared with a new account. With God Rabbit having been unofficially finished in his absence, he set to work on another new and ambitious project: "Super Smash Bros Dimensions", a Super Smash Bros. game themed mainly around YouTube Poop. Alongside uploading mock-up videos to his new YouTube channel, Titleinlarge also uploaded images of characters and such to his DeviantART account, mimicking the visual style of the Smash Bros Dojo that was receiving updates on Brawl around the same time. Like all the rest of his work, it was met with both hype and criticism.

Things started off fairly innocuous, showing off movesets, revealing characters like Fat Mario, Link and Mama Luigi, the things you'd expect. A couple characters were met with raised eyebrows, such as ElboTheHedgehog (an infamous “poop thief” with a recolored Shadow as his avatar) and Klonoa (who had nothing to do with poop in the slightest), but overall things progressed. It was with a couple later updates that things started to fall apart, with the reveal of three new characters in particular: Lopunny, Renamon, and an original character of Titleinlarge's named Wint.


I've drawn what I remember Wint looking like. Maybe he was originally used to test animation? Either way, Titleinlarge announced him as a legitimate contender.

While Titleinlarge's fans were generally indifferent to the new additions, the forums I can say from personal experience were utterly flabbergasted, irritated and amused. The main issue came down to the fact that the game was being billed as a YTP Smash Bros, and Titleinlarge himself had stated that early on in his work. Even ignoring the various 2007-2008 calls of “FURFAGGOTRY ARGH ARHGHAGH” in regards to Lopunny and Renamon, what exactly did these characters have to do with YTP? The reason was clear that they, and Wint, were added only because Titleinlarge wanted them in (something Titleinlarge also eventually admitted). The forums, in a grumpy, War-on-AIDS-induced haze, organized themselves and began a raid on Titleinlarge's accounts.

I remember quite a bit of the raid. It spanned both Titleinlarge's YouTube account and his DeviantART account, focused on flaming and spamming him as much as possible – it was a brute-force strategy, but effective nonetheless. Titleinlarge's fans did defend him, but it was mostly pointless and scattered. Titleinlarge was somewhat aware of what was happening, but pushed forwards regardless, releasing another update, an image that was described as a scene from the planned story mode of the game. It was a picture of Wint and Lopunny sitting together on a log in a generic, full-moon romantic setting. You can imagine how this added fuel to the raid fire.

Of course, YouChew had been the prime suspect of most people as to who was perpetrating the raid on Titleinlarge, but the forum members managed to shift the blame from them onto the vague target of “the Naruto Forums” through the most effortless deflection possible: insisting that it was true. Eventually the raiding grew rampant enough that Titleinlarge found his enthusiasm tremendously dampened, to the point where his parents apparently noticed, according to a real-life friend of his who commented on his DeviantART account after it was all over.

Upon hearing about what was going on, Titleinlarge's parents ended up having him close his YouTube account and wipe his DeviantART clean of any and all images and journals, and with that, Titleinlarge vanished from the internet once again, this time for good. His fans went into a frenzy, the forums returned to relative normalcy, and that was that. Coincidentally, or perhaps through some strange form of fate, Titleinlarge's permanent departure came around the same time as the appearance of a new flash pooper named IAmTheGang, one who focused on paint programs and basic frame-by-frame animation instead of aftereffects...


This salvaged mockup screenshot on the Chewiki is quite possibly the only surviving image of the planned game proper.

I don't think anyone who participated is proud of the raid on Titleinlarge. I'm certainly not – and looking at the surviving raid comments (mine and others) in the comments section of his DeviantART account makes me cringe. In hindsight, though, I don't think the situation would have ended any other way anyway. It's been said by multiple people, myself included, but ultimately "Super Smash Bros. Dimensions" was far too large of a project for Titleinlarge to take on alone in his spare time. Even if YouChew hadn't raided his accounts, the pressure of working on such an ambitious game would have caused him to crack sooner or later.

Nowadays, Titleinlarge isn't exactly well-known. Because he left so many years ago, his mark on history is fairly obscured, his name eclipsed by better-known flash poopers, just like his God Rabbit eclipsed his friend's God Luigi. The people who do remember him are the ones who were around at the same time TiL was, those who saw the original uploads of his work, and those who liked or disliked him. He appeared and flared up in popularity, only to burn out just as soon as he'd arrived.

Despite being one of the pioneers of flash poops, Titleinlarge left so early that he became forgotten among the people who continued to make flash poops and push that avenue forward. His work, while very amateur and basic, was the first step towards a new style of poop that's liked and respected nowadays. He may have disappeared outright, but his concepts survived, and for that, he earned his place in pooping history, no matter how small it may have turned out to be.

Time for another TV overview! This time, I’m going to be writing about a show that both goes in line with the most brutal time of the year, and also to celebrate its upcoming Doomstar Requiem special being released on the 27th. If the picture didn't already give it away to you for some strange reason, I'm of course talking about the metal-driven show of mass brutality known as Metalocalypse.

To get started, the general set-up for the show revolves around metal-band Dethklok. Nathan Explosion is the lead vocalist, Skwisgaar Skwigelf and Toki Wartooth are the band’s lead guitarist and rhythm guitarist respectively, William Murderface is the bassist, and Pickles the Drummer is (obviously) self-explanatory. Their band is so monumentally popular that their record sales have major influence over the world’s economic status, and thousands upon thousands of people will follow treat them as idols and follow whatever kind of fad that they’ve began or endorsed. Often times this ends up costing these people their lives, as the entire band seems to carry an unforgiving cloud of chaos that comes into contact with anyone around them that either leaves them dead or horribly injured. This often happens in the form of their concerts, which become progressively more elaborate in their overall design and scope, which in turn leads to progressively more elaborate accidental fan slaughtering. And despite all of the people that are harmed or killed by their influence, that never ends up taking a toll on their social status in any way, thus being a further testament to how insanely (and dangerously) influential the band is in this show's twisted universe.

(From left to right: Skwisgaar Skwigelf, William Murderface, Nathan Explosion, Toki Wartooth, Pickles the Drummer)

The main reason why this keeps happening is solely because of the band’s constant quest to become “brutal”, anything else that doesn’t pertain to themselves never ends up concerning them for the most part. The only consistent form of a conscious that they have is in the form of their Manager and CFO, Charles Offdensen, who regularly tries to teach the band how to properly behave in different situations, much to no avail, though he still manages to keep a calm, level head at almost all times despite how the band treats him. For the most part, Offdensen is the main reason why the band is still in one piece, as he uses the band’s godly social status along with his own strategic wit and physical prowess to get them out of nearly any sticky situations that they end up getting entangled in.

During the time Dethklok partakes in all of these mundane and miscellanious activities and takes advantage of the privileges they’ve gained as a result of their stardom, a mysterious group known as The Tribunal keeps watch over their every move, and will often describe whatever it is that they’re doing along with the negative effects that it will have on the world as a result. While at first it seems as though their ultimate motive is to eliminate the band by any means necessary, it’s unknown exactly what kind of action they plan to take against them, since their leader, known simply as Mr. Salacia, seems to have his own hidden motives regarding the band that not even members of The Tribunal seem to know about. As the series goes on, the audience continues to get fed more and more pieces of info about this group, though nothing has been revealed in clear yet.

With the general exposition out of the way, I’m going to dive into the content of the show season-by-season, as I did with my Moral Orel overview, in order to show how the series has evolved and progressed as it continued. So without further ado, let’s begin.

Season 1:

Being the first season, the show obviously has to get you up to speed on exactly what it is that you’re watching. For this reason, the show sticks pretty closely to a general formula; an episode will usually start out with one of or all of the band members coming across some sort of social obstacle and trying to overcome it in the most brutal or metal way possible. Because of this, combined with their overall incompetence and inflated egos due to their overly sheltering fame, they’ll practically always screw up what they’re trying to achieve, usually causing several casualties in the process.

For the most, because the show mostly focuses on general band antics during the beginning, you don’t really get to know the individual band members very well, with the exceptions mostly being Murderface and Toki; the former gets some episodes that delve into his pathetic and narcissistic nature and Toki gets an episode that starts to shed light on how childish and naïve he is. This isn’t something I consider to be a negative trait, since at the moment the show is still trying to give the audience a general idea of what the show is like before focusing more on smaller individual traits, but it’s something to take note of. Along with that, we meet a few of some of the future mainstays throughout the recurring cast of the show, including their producer Dick Knubbler, their therapist Dr. Twinkletits (pronounced twink-LET-its instead of the obvious alternative) and the cocaine-addicted rock-and-roll clown known as Dr. Rockso, who is basically a disturbing combination of every lead of every popular 80s hair metal band to ever exist. And everyone except for Toki hates his guts. It’s a relationship that has yet to grow old for me even as the series continues.

This is Dr. Rockso, the rock 'n roll clown. He does cocaine. That's all you need to know.

The animation in this season is pretty crude, but it gets the job done. I’ll say right now that the show’s art style and overall animation benefits much more as the series continues, but I’ll get to that when the time comes. Despite that, the backgrounds and overall atmosphere of the show still manage to look very nice and only get better as the show moves on. And this early in the game for the show, most of the weight mood-wise is carried by Brendon Small's hilariously over-the-top metal ballads that are written for the band to perform, with tracks as absurd "Murmaider" (literally just the product of the band combining the words mermaid and murder) and "Fansong" (an entire song dedicated to calling out their fans for being terrible) serving as each episode's special signature during this season.

While the entire season maintains this consistency throughout it, the finale begins to shed light on some of the grander things to come in the future. Two of the members of The Tribunal, General Croizer and Cardinal Ravenwood, have grown weary of the fact that Salacia never chooses to make a move regarding the eradication of Dethklok, so they decide to take matters into their own hands in secret by staging an assassination on the band. After Salacia finds out that the two members betrayed him, he uses newly revealed/mysterious powers to brutally kill off Ravenwood to puke out his own insides and die, while sparing Croizer due to his services still being needed by him. After that they mysteriously disappear. These events ultimately set the stage for the next season.

Season 2:

This season picks up relatively around the time when the first season ended, with Dethklok being in hiding after they almost lost their lives. However, this doesn’t last too long as they eventually receive more “brutal” venue requests that they take up and everything essentially goes back to normal, including the Tribunal’s constant surveillance of the band. However, to replace Ravenwood after he was killed off, a mysterious man named Valter Orlaag is put in his place as the spiritual advisor, and throughout the season the audience gets hints towards him knowing and fully supporting whatever Salacia’s secret intentions may be.

Anyway, as for how this season is set up in general, we still get a lot of band-related and celebrity-related hijinks revolving Dethklok’s god-like status on earth, these episodes put more emphasis on the band members and their interactions with each other rather than solely on the band affecting the world around them with whatever comes into contact with them. Along with this, there’s a notable increase in the band’s interactions with Offdensen, which I’d say is one of the most amusing and welcoming changes since the individual naiveté and stupidity of each band member coinciding with Offdensen’s collected and parental position for the band results in a lot of great moments of dry humor. A lot more focus is placed upon Offdensen in this season in general, and slowly learning a little bit more about his skilled physical and mental capabilities along with his devotion to the band is both entertaining a welcoming for a foil character.

In case you were wondering, yes, Nathan Explosion does in fact become governor of Florida at one point. And yes, it's as amazing as it sounds.

The animation quality also starts to improve rather noticeably as this season progresses. Much of the animation in the first season had moments of awkward movements and jerky tweens, while in this season a lot of the animation is really smoothed out to the point where most of the tweens hardly stand out at all, and by the time of the Season 2 finale things start to look pretty damn great and the animation finally starts to mesh with the great looking gothic/metal backgrounds that the show’s artists produce. Even more noticeable is the transformation of the songs in this show as well. They slowly become less and less tongue-in-cheek and more of a legitimate product of the metal genre, and I can't help but appreciate the effort that Brendon Small puts into composing the score for the show in the way that he does.

Continuing on the overarching story side of things, this season introduces a new threat to the band in the form of The Revengeancers, which is essentially an anti-Dethklok movement formed by a large group of people who have been wronged by Dethklok in the past. They are led by an unnamed individual with a metal mask covering the top of his face referred to by others as the Masked Man, who had previously been contacted by Croizer in the Season 1 finale to assassinate the band, only to be stopped by Offdensen after he broke his arm in the heat of combat and pushed him into icy waters, presumed to be dead. However, in one of the first episodes of Season 2, he comes back, along with rescuing a previous mega-fan and computer genius known as Edgar Jomfru, to form this group and plan for their demise.

Along with this, it’s been a while since Dethklok has released a new album, and they keep putting it off until they reach a point where they have to cram the entire recording session into two small months, lest they end up missing their release date and sending the entire world into both an economic recession and societal disruption. An entire episode is even devoted to them being shut inside their fortress of a home known as Mordhaus chipping away at the new record; which is pretty amusing and shows just how ridiculous things get among them when pressed for time.

When the half-hour season finale finally comes around, both of these sub-plots come together, as Dethklok hosts a large celebration for their new release while the Revengeancers plan to take this opportunity to strike. While the band manages to escape the wreckage unscathed, Offdensen is not as lucky, as he eventually gets shot down during a high speed chase with the Masked Man, allowing for him to beat Offdensen to a bloody pulp within an inch of his life. The band manages to knock the Masked Man out before he could further torture him, but the damage had already been done at that point. It’s a pretty impactful way to end the season because, up until this point, Offdensen has managed to avoid major injury and death despite maintaining such close contact with the band. All in all I’d say that this is where things in the show really start to get good, since we now know a lot more of how the characters tick in addition to many of these explosive developments getting more spotlight. And Season 3 only gets better from there.

RIP in piece, Mordhaus

Season 3:

Before I go into detail about this season something worth noting about this season is that it’s the first and so far only season to be in half-hour format, opting to have ten larger episodes instead of twenty smaller ones. Along with that, the show is now in HD, which makes the gothic, brooding imagery pop even more than before, and it really does look fantastic. Quality in the animation department has improved as well, with a lot more varied and dynamic shots occurring throughout and less static movement for the characters. Everything in general just looks very good and it’s interesting to go back to earlier episodes after watching this season and seeing just how much has changed.

In general, an subtle overarching touch that I've come to notice from watching the show is how it grows and expands with each season. This not only has to do with being more familiar with the characters, but also with the whole look and feel of the show in general. Despite the fact that the show has always been about the most popular metal band and media icons in the world, along with their overblown presentation of themselves, the show still manages to make those moments even bigger with each season, with their concerts becoming even more bombastic and insane with their presentation. The performance that they put on in the Season 3 finale is a testament to this and I don't think they've managed to top it yet. Along with that, there are several more subtle changes that reflect this as well, like the Tribunal’s meeting room getting a bigger and even more dynamic upgrade than the season before. It really helps the show feel like it has evolved over time, which is something that I can’t help but find entertaining.

The Tribunal's growth throughout the course of each season

Anyway, after the explosive finale of the second season, Dethklok is basically left to have to go up shit creek without a paddle, with their former manager and CFO presumed to be dead and Mordhaus being vacated high up in the earth’s atmosphere in the midst of heavy reconstruction after the Revengeancers’ raid on the place. For the first time ever they’re left to take care of all business affairs themselves, and all of this is happening while they’re at the risk of being dropped by their record company and ultimately losing their careers. It’s probably one of the show’s best episodes just for how it much time it allows for the interactions within the band to breathe, and within the hectic moments that they end up experiencing in this episode it provides for some really entertaining moments. In the end Offdensen returns at the very last minute before the band would end up signing their careers away, though he chooses not to disclose anything about his whereabouts during the time he was gone weren't clarified. His return still felt very satisfying even though it was pretty obvious that he would come back in the first place.

Continuing the ongoing trend of more character-focused plots of Season 2, this season pretty much devotes an episode to every single member of the band, giving them their own song and everything. Hell, even Dr. Rockso due to his popularity among fans got his own episode dealing with his past. Much of this season’s format is very sitcommy in nature, but I have absolutely no problem with that as it actually helps make these previously bizarre and exaggerated metal band archetypes seem more human and relatable. The most notably entertaining character-centric episode of this season for me is “Rehabklok”, which features Pickles as he has to deal with his ever-growing drug addiction and doing so in the form of a giant rock ballad. It’s just as overexaggerated in tone if not moreso than the plots of past seasons, but definitely benefits from the larger focus.

Rock on, Pickles.

The interconnected story within the series involving The Tribunal is less focused on in this season, with them having probably the least screentime in any season yet and sometimes having episodes without them completely. However, I really didn’t see a need to have to shoehorn them into the plots of this season, as they very much just had to do with the band’s own personal issues rather than something they did that is made public to several people. The most we really get is small snippets in the season premiere and the season finale, where we find out that Salacia and Offdensen have some sort of strong parallel that is not made perfectly clear beyond the fact that he serves as a major potential threat to the organization. Either way, if anyone was left disappointed by this, the next season I'll be discussing will easily make up for that.

Season 4:

With Season 4, the show ended up changing the season format yet again. Not only did they go back to the quarter-hour long episodes, but it’s also the shortest series with only 12 episodes. Despite this though, it probably contains the most amount of continuity within its episodes out of any season so far, with basically every episode moving along the same sub-plot in some way while focusing on whatever else the band is doing. And due to it being shorter, the overall pacing of this season story-wise is really satisfying. The show has already broken in the characters enough in the past few seasons that they’re able to take them in any direction that they please at this point, and this season takes full advantage of that.

Is that to say that there aren't any comedy-centric episodes this season? Definitely not. Some notable episodes that left a great comedic impression on me include an episodes that revolve around the gang trying to remove any potential racist image, Murderface getting plastic surgery in order to make himself handsome, and, my personal favorite, when Nathan ends up dating an obsessive fan. The latter scenario eventually leads the band to go to Klokikon, a fan convention dedicated solely to them, and we're treated to amazing depictions of cosplayers, furries, and "homosketchuals fansfictions" as Skwisgaar would put it. It's just as hilariously absurd as it sounds.

The season opens up with narration provided by veteran filmmaker Werner Herzog, who continues these narrations throughout the course of most of the beginning of the episodes before his character gets revealed during the season finale. As for the band, it’s been a while in the show since they last released a new record, and the season seems to make a point that they’ll soon be revealing it to the public. During the mass record shipment, a massive storm ends up sinking all the ships containing the record, leaving the only remaining copy being the master located in Mordhaus. However, in the midst of all this, Nathan is experiencing strange dreams and anxiety attacks about it, and in a fit of drunken rage and at the protest of Pickles he ends up destroying the master record. This essentially sets the course for the rest of the events of the band in the series, as this sets the entire world in a massive economic recession and the band basically has to clean up after the mess they’ve created.

Among all of this, other developments take place. We find out more about the band’s past when Toki comes in contact with the band’s previous rhythm guitarist Magnus Hammersmith, who left the band due to relationship complications and planned to exact revenge in the future. It seemed as though he had ill intent towards Toki at first, though he came to his aid when needed and it seemed as though he harbored no more ill will toward Dethklok anymore. Also, the band’s previous producer Dick Knubbler ends up losing his job due to the band’s failure to meet the deadline, and is replaced with a new producer, Abigail Remeltindrinc, who seemed to get along okay with the band at first, but things eventually became complicated when she became the object of affection for the band when they’re placed in the isolated confines of the Dethsub where Abigail was the only contact with a female that they had. As you’d imagine, this makes things really awkward for many members of the band, and the actual “intimate” moment that Abigail eventually shares with one of the members is even more so.

Dethklok: The Wonder Years

All of the complications that I mentioned lead to several chaotic events taking place within the span of the final few episodes. Some of these events include a temporary break-up of the band, Salacia finally revealing himself and his powers in front of them, Offdensen revealing information about where he has been during his previous absence and what role the band plays in a shady prophecy, the death of an important band figure, and the return of the Revengeancers, who end up abducting two key members of the band during the cliffhanger finale. There really isn’t a dry moment during any of this, and I still can’t determine if the show will even go back to its more mundane, drier times or if this is truly the beginning of the end of the show, but I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

In Conclusion:

Overall, what do I say about the series as a whole as far as recommendations go? Well, I think it has a lot to do with how much you fall in line with the subject matter it covers. The show has a very obvious theme and approach to its comedy, storytelling and aesthetic style, and if you generally cannot stand death metal or morbid/macabre themes then obviously no amount of watching this show would probably be able to change your mind. Otherwise if you’re open to trying it then I recommend checking it out, because when it comes to its execution and overall subject matter, it's very unique and unlike any other music-themed shows out there.

As I mentioned at the very beginning of this article, there’s an upcoming hour-long rock opera special that’ll be airing in the next few days that picks up right after Season 4’s finale, and many seem to wonder whether or not it’ll be the end of the show since Brendon Small has gone on record saying that he’d like to do 4-5 seasons and a movie before ending it for good. Either way, I’d say the show has managed to have a good run, and it’s going to go down for me as one of Adult Swim’s finest.

Warning: There are massive spoilers for the show. Do not read if you haven't watched the show yet.


Real Season 5b DVD box art.

Breaking Bad had quite an impressive run. Filmed in mid-2007 by little-known TV industry veteran Vince Gilligan, sitcom actor Bryan Cranston, and that guy who acted in that one Korn music video back in 2002, this black comic tale about a teacher who resorts to making meth with a delinquent ex-student of his has grown to be one of TV’s best dramas, showcasing actors and indie directors for what they were really worth. In the end, as Walt drifts away from his body at the end of “Felina,” Vince left many questions unanswered. Will Gretchen and Elliot do what Walt says or realize that his operation was a total sham? Where will Jesse go? Has Saul made his Cinnabon the best in Omaha? Do Badger and Skinny Pete ever sell their Star Trek spec script?

However, the real question that comes in my mind is, “What did Walt really mean to Skyler when he confessed to her that final time?” As a guy who’s watched quite a few episodes (and read about the full plot in detail), I know for a fact that Walt has a history of lying to Skyler. And his former colleagues. These lies usually come in pairs – you can’t tell Skyler that you have Albuquerque’s largest non-Madrigal meth operation and then talk about how you got into the prog rock industry with your ex-flame. There’s something very odd about Walt manipulating Gretchen and Elliot into laundering his money to Flynn and having him confess to Skyler that he made meth because it gave his ego fuzzy feelings. Given his prior patterns with lying, he wouldn’t deviate from the norm because of a six-month sabbatical in New Hampshire, nor would he change his entire modus operandi all because his son called him out on his emotional neglect. Walt’s managed to find another way around this. Just as how he found a way to send money to Flynn without making it clear that it’s from him, Walt would find a way to satisfy his and Skyler’s goals.


Walt meditating at a horrible restaurant about his plan of action.

I am of the opinion that Walt did not confess to Skyler about why he entered the industry. Not only would it be out of character for him – having him make meth just to revel in his final two years of life completely violates any established motivations Walt has for entering the industry (subverting Gretchen and Elliot’s expectations; frustration with his over-qualification; trying to make a nest egg for his family) – it would also be too perfect for Walt to say that he made meth “for me.” Given that Vince is a standard dramatist, this could just be the case, but watching the prior episodes, he and the scriptwriters tend to hide something in them that completely changes the interpretation. Vince, in an effort to write a satisfying story, would not resort to having Walt state a dramatic cliché just to satisfy his duties to Skyler.

No, I believe Walt told his last lie to her in the “Felina” timeline. Vince wants you, the surrogate omniscient viewer, to believe that his last lie was the call that failed to erase Skyler’s involvement with his crimes at the tail end of “Ozymandias.” He wants you to believe that Walt will be truthful to her from now on. However, why would Walt want to support a family that vehemently believes that he killed Hank? Why would Walt want to support a family that has probably detailed to the agents-in-charge about how he’s been cold and distant for the past two years? Also, would they really get the money he forced the Schwartzes to take? To me, it makes more sense for Walt to give what Skyler wants – which is radically different than what happened.

Yeah, Walt had a massive pride problem – and that’s one of the reasons why he got into the drug business in the first place. He didn’t want his family to ride off the legacy of Elliot and Gretchen, who merely appropriated Walt’s work and called it their own. He wanted his family to not rely on stressing themselves out and forcing themselves into poverty when they died. His main intent throughout the series was “make my family financially secure by my hard work.” He was underpaid as a high school chemistry teacher AND car wash employee. When he did, his jobs then wouldn’t have made his family live somewhat comfortably – no benefits whatsoever. Simply having him state “I did this for me” is merely a slap in the face to his family – the family that refused to listen when he desperately tried to tell the truth about what happened with Hank and how he adamantly begged Jack to spare his life.


Skyler's reaction to my proposition.

Don’t forget that he was willing to give up his goods to bring closure to Hank’s investigation. This is similar to what might have happened between Walt, Gretchen, and Elliot at Grey Matter – Walt was willing to give up something for the upstart company’s happiness, Gretchen and Elliot merely patent all his ideas as their own, and he wants nothing to do with them (thus one reason why he took the buyout). In the end, Walt views his family as crooked and uncompromising as his former business partners – thus he takes them down in one fell swoop. Implicate Gretchen and Elliot in his business by having his money and then say the equivalent of “you broke my heart” to Skyler.

But in that case, Walt’s character becomes utterly horrible. He’s willing to destroy his family just to inflate his pride. According to Vince, Walt experiences a slight redemption at the end. If my theory is to be believed, then him making Gretchen and Elliot give his dirty money to Flynn isn’t the redemption. To me, it’s when he saves Jesse. He does it for the same reasons – he realizes how much he’s destroyed Jesse’s life, both intentionally and unintentionally, and therefore decides to take a fatal bullet for his former student. To him, after severing ties with Skyler under the presumption of “telling the truth,” he saves the only person he truly cared about. Granted that he want to Jack’s compound solely to kill Jesse, but he knew deep down in his head that Jesse wouldn’t turn his back on him, get a massive amount of power from Jack, and supply Blue Sky all over the world. Jesse wanted to get out of the industry, Walt remembers, and so he wouldn’t go back into the industry behind his back. Walt knows that Jack betrayed him – he saw the neo-Nazi murder Hank in cold blood despite his desperate pleas. Also, even if Jesse made Blue Sky by his own free will, Walt wouldn’t run back to ABQ just to kill a former partner – too much of a risk. Why was Walt willing to take the risk to drive back to Albuquerque, start a nationwide manhunt, and take down the parties that shoved him aside for their own biases?


Protip: it's not the badly-dressed guy on the right.

Simple: he came back to rescue Jesse. The report on the TV about Blue Sky being manufactured? This alerted Walt that Jesse was being forced by Jack to make his product. A freed Jesse wouldn’t do such a thing. Assuming that he would kind of makes Walt into an utter moron – assuming that a neo-Nazi would let Jesse have a share of the empire despite being put into slavery. Walt also most likely heard about Andrea’s death from the vacuum cleaner salesman – that should tell him that his former partner, the one that teamed up with Hank, was being beaten down by the neo-Nazis, not an equal business partner. Walt drives to Albuquerque, ties up the loose ends with the Schwartzes and his family, and plans an assault on Jack. When he gets there, he knows that Jack wouldn’t want to bring Jesse out in case if the guy made a mad dash for the exit, so he played with Jack. He made assumptions to Jack about Jesse’s role in the empire. Jack is insulted, so he takes out the bedraggled and emaciated Jesse to show Walt how “stupid” he is. Walt starts the trunk turret and immediately shields Jesse from the torrent. If Walt hated Jesse with every fiber of his being, he would’ve let Jesse die in the torrent.

So, why does he want Jesse to kill him? Walt knows how much he fucked up Jesse’s life and, realizing that he’s not only dying but has done enough damage for a lifetime, wants Jesse to take out his anger on him. Walt is willing to sacrifice himself for Jesse’s happiness. Jesse, knowing that Walt’s bleeding, hands the gun back, asks Walt to do the deed himself, and drives off into the night.

That’s my fan theory in a nutshell. Rather than dwell on the official “Walt loves meth 5evr” explanation Vince gives out, I feel that it plays around with Walt’s fragile character and still manages to redeem the guy in a sense. As with all fan theories, it’s merely just one big wild guess, but I hope it gives you a new take on things during your second or third or fourth binge-watch of the show.

Mwahaha! Greetings to all of you. You're probably preparing for the eve of Hallow, where you will partake in the rituals that have been passed down from generation to generation. Now, everyone who makes content has to do some sort of gimmick for the holidays because that's what holidays are for. I was thinking of reviewing a movie, but I already did Blacula, and I'm not sure what other spin I could put on The Shining since everyone and their mother has some sort of alternate interpretation of it. Then I thought I would tell a scary story, but writing horror is a very tricky task to endure and I'd much rather try to wait a while until I somewhat understand properly how others managed to successfully scare the shit out of you simply with the power of words. As I kept skimming through the possibilities, I figured why not just get into talking about the holiday in a general sense. It's like killing multiple birds with one stone, only to find that they'll stay on my window-still and quote pretentious poetry driving me to either insanity or writing more pretentious poetry...which really isn't different from one another. But before we can even get to that, let's just get rid of the not-important stuff.

First off, the history of Halloween. According to History.com, Halloween began as a Celtic ritual where the drunk bastards would light a bonfire and prance around in costumes to scare off spirits. Then the Pope decided to make the day about saints and martyrs because the Catholic Church has to stick it's fingers into everything. Yeah, from that we came to what we have now. I'm sure there's other details I missed and nowadays the credibility of History has gone down the shitter ever since it decided to talk about aliens so maybe this is one whole fluke, but who cares? Valentine's Day probably has nothing to do with the Saint Valentine, Easter went from talking about Jesus's resurrection to a giant lagomorph hiding eggs and are we just gonna forget that Christmas used to be a time when Greek pagans would chug down wine and engage in orgies? But do we have to include this into what the holiday has become now? No, there's no need to do because we're fine with the new way we enjoy our silly holidays instead of going back to the old way of enjoying silly holidays. The only people who do are the ones that want to look like the biggest asshats. So there's really no point.

The other thing I want to talk about real quickly is Halloween-themed writing. Now as I've already mentioned above, writing something that really creeps people out is not easy. It's not impossible though since people like Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, H.G Wells and H.P Lovecraft managed to make the most iconic horror stories of our lifetime. Nowadays, the only one really churning out good horror is Stephen King and...uh...erm...maybe Neil Gaiman too? I dunno, there's not really many names to speak of. The crappy stuff on the other hand has gone through the roof ever since someone decided to make the creepypasta, which has the most ironic name since the Ministries in 1984. If that isn't bad enough, the whole "telling scary stories near a campfire" thing has died out, being replaced with "watching someone tell you an hour-and-a-half long scary story in a theatre that you have to pay for", but I'll get to that later. Point is, unless the person that wrote the story is an alcoholic who can't get enough of the lobster capital of the USA, there is absolutely no reason you should even bother with horror writing.

Now that we got the dull crap out of the way, let's talk about the important factors, such as costumes. I don't really know how people handled the costumes in the past, I assume it was just like another ball but with a more terrifying theme put forward. There was still the influence of popular culture in the choices that people would take no doubt, but it was usually the parts that were more horrifying such as vampires, werewolves, ghosts, witches and what-have-yous (those are so frightening that people melt right in front of you at the mere sight of your attire). As more and more stories started to enter into pop culture, there was a greater variety of creatures that you could disguise yourselves as for the occasion, but with that came the devolution of how scary the costumes would be. Today, Halloween is basically diluted to simply pop culture. With that said though, that's not to say that there isn't any effort put into costumes. Cosplay has been growing substantially throughout the years and people are able to make mindblowing costumes, some which will keep to the terrifying traditions. You'll just have to sift through the countless Walter Whites knocking at your door for candy. And you better believe one of those will be some chick who wants to make it unnecessarily sexy.



I'm sure "I am the Danger" means "I have crabs"

Speaking of sweet stuff, let's talk about candy. Now, one would think that I have to talk about trick-or-treating in here as well, but that's a different subject entirely. I'll get to it though. The treats that one gets on Halloween are subject to seven categories, the chocolates, the sugar powder kegs, the sweet-n-sours, candied apples, the inevitables, the miscellaneous and the hidden gem. The chocolates are by far the most popular with the kids as they will scarf them down first. It would be hard to speak for everyone on which one is the superior chocolate bar, but I'm sure one couldn't go wrong with Kit Kats. The sugar powder kegs would be the second ones that come through and these vary from being relatively okay for the youngins to turning them into pinballs. The sweet-n-sours are sometimes similar to the sugar powder kegs, at least in the wrapping. Kids will fall prey to one powerful mouth-vacuum accidentally thanks to this category and while some have the advent of being damn good, they're damn dangerous too. Candied apples are a nice little treat, and it's better to have that one first or put it in the fridge as fast as you can after a night collecting treats. The inevitables are the ones that no one wants to have, but will end up in the basket anyway. This is basically the black licorice, the raisin boxes and the mystery candy that no one wants to touch. You can guess what the miscellaneous are, but the hidden gem is by far the most important. It's the candy that everyone has had but no one can agree on. It's the best damn thing in the basket, bar none, and it's not as widely spread as the Hershey's or the Nestle's. Oh, I remember my hidden gem, it was quite the beauty...

I better not sidetrack myself about the talk about delicious candy, so allow me to collect my thoughts here...uh...what else...oh right! Decorating! It depends mainly on how enthusiastic the people in their house are around the holidays, and in a way it also depends on the house itself. Sure, one could spend all their time and effort buying props and turning their nice lawn into a graveyard. They could add little details to make their well-furbished house look like a monstrosity. Hell, they could even buy a fog machine and place stereos underground to really commit to the occasion, but I guarantee you that the nice old lady living in the crooked mansion up the hill, guarded by a large, black gate that seems to attract dozens of crows would win "Haunted House Of The Year" over that anytime. If we're gonna talk about decorating, we might as well talk about pumpkin carving too, because it's in the similar vein. The only difference is that effort actually accounts for something. It's a very tragic thing too because it's along the same lines as ice sculpting. Yes, it looks absolutely wonderful when someone takes time to add so much detail into the work, but it's a hell of a shame that it'll deteriorate faster than an internet meme.



I'm sure it was worth it to sculpt on something that'll last a week or two at most.

Getting back to candy, now we must talk about how one gets it as opposed to the candy itself. Through the trials of the trick-or-treat trail, one finds themselves looking upon many houses asking the owners for a delicacy. Much like the candy itself, there are select types of people you will meet along your quest for your cavity-creating rewards. There's the average Joe who might acknowledge how good you look in a costume and give you a reasonable handful of candy. Then there's the person who wants to go with a more personal touch and makes cookies or brownies and gives them to you. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you might find yourself with the humble rich family who will give you a full size or even king sized candy bar instead of those mini ones that all the other cheapskates throw in apathetically. Occasionally there might be the owner with some foreign/exotic candy and/or the house of an owner who's left and decides to put a bin of candy along with a letter that basically sums up to "hey, don't be a greedy fuck", but you'll go ahead and take as much as you can because you're not gonna listen to what a piece of paper says. Last and very much least is the jerk who'll either give you dental products, no candy or not even open the door. I'm not sure if the policy of tricking has changed recently thanks to this wave of PC-ness and/or pranksters going too far with the comeback, but usually that house ends up with the most eggs on the door and toilet-paper on the trees.

If you're too old for that sort of kiddy crap, you can always go to a Halloween party. Halloween parties basically substitute the overload of sugar with the overload of alcohol. All of them basically just dumb down to "make an ass out of yourself while in a costume" but some get inventive with stuff like jello shots with toy insects inside them or glowing cocktails that give you the feeling someone put glowstick fluid inside the drinks. As for the types of people, you have the people who put too little effort in their costume, people who put too much effort into it, the usual crap either consisting of cliche characters or modern references and my personal favorite, the super-sexy costumes. Though, it has become more and more of a touchy subject when it comes to the kinky costumes. And I realize that while that pun was unintentionally great, it's also unintentionally tragic for some cases. Now, it may sound like fun to go to a Halloween party, but you have to consider that when you wake up with a hangover, you might find your snazzy costume covered with puke (either from you or another party) and getting a picture on your phone where you were frenching some witch and bobbing her apples too...or maybe his.

By far though, the most iconic thing that has come out of Halloween is the movies. The black and white era practically had a field day with Universal Studios making the classics that we revel in. It actually was quite fitting to have these shock-filled films be without color as it really made the atmosphere that more eerie. Much of the stories said above were adapted to films and brought home some eerie folk like Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff. Along with the real creepy stuff was the more over-the-top work which we refer to as B-Movies. They still had some semblance of scares, but the cheese factor was more prevalent. They were still fun, and in a way they captured the holiday spirit, but it's not as highly-regarded as the other work. Over the years, those two seemed to blend a bit more, but iconic characters still came out from it. Mike Myers, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface and Freddy Kreuger made their names in the holiday and left people screaming out the theatres. Though the one that did that the most is still the masterpiece of The Exorcist. How about today? Well, I don't wan't to sound like a cynic since I like movies like Saw, but horror really isn't that good today. There's certainly some good horror films and there are films that capture horror elements perfectly, but there's no denying there's a lot more schlock, sequels and remakes. And I swear to god if I see another Paranormal Activity or a Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I'm going to do something that will inspire them to make a story on my reign of terror, you mark my fucking words.



I swear to god I saw an internet ad for this that said "Keep calm and Carrie on", I shit you not.

The holiday has certainly had a weird evolution since it has become less about fear and menacing monsters and more about binging and banging. It's still certainly something to celebrate because it's the one time that you can wear whatever crazy thing you want without having to be labelled as a freak or convention frequenter. It's a time when we can see the night sky and find a little more than just the stars and the full moon. There's a sense of mystery and wonder there too and if you stop chugging a bottle or scarfing down candy for a second you can sense it and find yourself entranced by it. Plus, it's not like the fear has completely vanished. If anything, the fact that there seems to be less genuine scares helps it to hide in the mesh of everything else. It deludes you into thinking that you're safe from the vile unknown that will come to consume you. And when you're safe at home, relaxing, thinking that this holiday has become nothing but a former shell of itself...that's when it gets you. Sure, you might think that perhaps what will come after you won't be as creepy as anything else. Maybe you'll scoff the idea off and imagine some cheap cardboard cutout being tossed towards your direction for a cheap jump-scare. But as time has gone on, humanity has evolved, and as humanity has evolved, so has it's knowledge of itself. And when the most twisted and disturbed of minds are capable to dive deep into the depths of what we all are afraid of, when they can tamper with the world that we have set up in order to use it against us, that's when we have to realize that there is no place to be safe from what the day is really all about.



This will be you...jerry curls included.

I recently watched a short TV miniseries called Merlin, and it made me realize something odd. I wasn’t really interested in the story, though I like Arthurian myth as much as anyone. I didn’t really care about what happened to Merlin or any of the characters really, though I thought Sam Neill did a pretty good job playing the wizard. I didn’t even laugh at the laughable parts, like the hammy performances (Martin Short especially) and some of the most incredibly dated special effects you’ve ever seen. Just think: a live fish necklace! A CGI dragon on loan from the D&D sequel! Computerized blood! (Kind of pointless, really.) Why did I keep watching? The answer is CD-I.

Don’t dispute me on this: Merlin has to be the most CD-I TV show ever. When a wizard fails to solve a problem, a tyrant king orders a guard to “take him away,” complete with hand gesture. When Merlin meets his love Nimue, he asks her for a kiss, which he refuses (though she doesn’t think he’s kidding). Later, when Merlin saves her from drowning with a long piece of wood, she says, “I suppose that’s deserving of a kiss.” After a long battle scene, Merlin’s voiceover says “I had won,” just as Link said at the end of Faces of Evil. Even smaller parts brought CD-I to mind, like the scene where Merlin’s mom gives him a cloak and tells him that it’ll be “enough,” or the occasional cry of “You must die!”

I write as if those phrases and actions came exclusively from CD-I. Apart from “Squadallah!” (which I still haven’t been able to trace), everything funny about Poop sources existed long before they did. That explains why the dialogue seems to crop up in so many films and books. A fatherly character in Barry Lyndon makes a point of calling Barry “my boy” in every line. A British policeman in Gandhi orders some other policemen to “take him away.” An angry anime character says "That's Mr. Kaneda to you, PUNK!" in Akira, echoing Mama Luigi's famous catchphrase. Emperor Palpatine says “You will die” before spraying lightning from his hands in the end of Return of the Jedi. Plus, I’m sure that several villains have said “You MUST die” at one point.

Still, for some reason, the traditional Youtube Poop sources figure strongly in my mind, and in the minds of poopers everywhere. When one game reviewer saw the Stone Tower Temple as a symbol of masculinity and anti-feminism, the members of this forum just saw “FOR.” When Jim Carrey channeled Orson Welles and Bela Lugosi in A Series of Unfortunate Events, we only saw a live-action I.M. Meen. When we saw the Lizard in Amazing Spider-Man, we couldn’t help noticing that he looked a lot like the Goombas from the Super Mario Brothers movie. When we saw the cover of A Confederacy of Dunces, we instantly thought “Morshu.” (Who can blame us?) When we watched the dreadful Felix the Cat movie, we couldn’t stop comparing its ending to Faces’ infamous conclusion. Could it have been simple coincidence that both works end with the hero defeating the villain by throwing a book?

Beyond works of fiction, we’re constantly reminded of CD-I. We see signs advertising “spaghetti dinner” on campus, and we see offers of “spa dinner” in the newspaper. Everyday products come with enclosed instruction books. People tell us that we “gotta help” them. We may even hear “you will die” from a friend or creepy stranger, and we definitely hear parents calling their sons "my boy." Hell, it happens all the time where I live. When my class read Othello, I laughed when Othello said “my boat departs early next morn” or something like that, even though I probably shouldn’t have. Around voting time, there were signs all over my city saying “No on prop B: BAD MEDICINE.” Evidently Yoshi is into politicking. Masses at my Catholic school sometimes include a song called “Your Grace is Enough” (no explanation needed there).

Why do CD-I, Super Mario World, the Sonic cartoons, and everything else poop-related have such strong powers of association? I’ve seen Battleship Potemkin multiple times and I’m very familiar with the “Odessa Steps” sequence in which a baby carriage rolls down a stairway in the middle of gunfire. Somehow I sat through a long scene in The Untouchables that clearly and officially paid homage to Potemkin and didn’t realize it until reading about it on Wikipedia. And yet I immediately think of CD-I and Youtube Poop the instant someone says something as common as “my boy” or “spaghetti.”

I can’t throw out my own background, of course. I’ve known about poop for six or seven years. That’s one-third to almost two-fifths of my life. It makes sense that I associate many things in life with Poop stuff. Still, I know that several poopers haven’t been in the scene as long as I have, and they still associate anything vaguely King- or Mario-like with the CD-I games. It might be that we subconsciously prefer those things that we encounter frequently, as the mere-exposure theory states. Or we might deliberately seek out parts of life that remind us of Pooph. Is there any good reason why we Youtube search “The King Must Die”? Because we like Elton John? Hell no. We want to be reminded of Youtube Poop. It brings us back to what we love doing, and it makes us laugh in a special way; i.e. "wow, did they actually just do/say that?" I'm convinced that a video like "Youtube Poop" could only come from the desire to find every poop reference ever. Why else would someone willingly watch an episode of Everybody Hates Chris?

We even had a whole thread solely dedicated to finding CD-I and other Poop references in real life. They extend from “Send Link” on a control click to our mothers observing that “the birds are singing.” If I remember correctly, the thread had over 15 pages (it's archived now). It’s like we can’t escape our own culture, if you could even call Youtube Poop a culture.

And sometimes, it does seem like Poop has its own world. This is a world where plumbers travel through time, royal figures engage in disgusting sexual acts on a regular basis, and everyone has a stuttering problem. Even the things that weren't originally part of the sources - "Gay Luigi," "double n***er," "a fuck for luck" - have kept us constantly thinking about Poop. And it doesn't even stop there. Not only have poop sources cropped up in real life, but poop itself has become synonymous with any kinds of crazy editing. Some of us might think we're watching one when a DVD skips or an experimental movie uses mirror and twirl effects, though it usually takes more than that.

Soon, though, those Poop references will no longer be unintentional. Actual knowledge of poop is still low - I only know 2 people in my area who watch it - but awareness seems to be growing. Somewhat recently, a Regular Show animator came out in his love for Youtube Poops, and openly acknowledged them as a major influence for one of the show's episodes. We're used to a world that doesn't care about us, though. TV writers can write "toast for dinner" or "you gotta help us" without meaning anything else. What will happen when those writers are in on the joke and specifically targeting us? Will the joke lose its flavor? It will for me. I wouldn't have laughed as much at Merlin if its creators knew how closely they hewed to CD-i tropes. I don't want to sound like one of those "I liked it before it was popular" people, but on the other hand, I'd prefer not to lose any of our in-jokes, no matter how esoteric they might be. Most of us don't poop anymore; those references just might be our last connection.

Whatever the reasons, the tendency of Youtube Poop to influence our view of the world deserves mention. It might just be another one of the odd things about Poop, but it seems too powerful for that. We will remember these quotes for the rest of our lives, and no one will understand why, not even us. And that's fine by me. I’ll bet you anything that we’ll still be calling our sons “my boy” well into adulthood.