MuppetFandom

I'm feeling oh, so nostalgic...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 16:50:00 +0000

Oh my god. I was just on the iTunes Music Store, my old standby, when I found the biggest possible news in the world: Warner Bros. Television has their TV shows on iTunes!!! They've got their new Aquaman TV show pilot (the one they showed at San Diego Comic Con if I remember correctly), they've got Friends, The Best of MADtv, Babylon 5 (sci-fi goodness that isn't Battlestar Galactica), and two cartoon shows they just so happen to own now that they have the Hanna-Barbera library. I'm not going to go into much detail on the whole H-B acquisition spree, as it is extraordinarily convoluted. These two shows are precursors to such hit shows as Family Guy, The Simpsons, Futurama, and Robot Chicken. Give up? Here's a hint for the first one: "Flintstones, meet the Flintstones, they're the modern Stone Age family". Here is a hint for the second one: "Meet George Jetson..." If you haven't guessed what these are yet, you have been living under a rock with no television since 1960: "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons" are now on iTunes!!! Holy buckets! What did we cartoon fans do right to deserve THIS???

Warner Bros. also has Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain on DVD for the first time! Then, in a Triple Whammy moment, they FINALLY settled their big dispute with King Features and Popeye is coming out on DVD in 2007!!!! Is Warner Brothers finally getting the picture?

The only things that I want now are the Censored Eleven on DVD, the complete Tex Avery WB and MGM film catalogue on DVD, Droopy with a DVD set of his own, with scant amounts of double-dipping, Tom and Jerry Kids on DVD, and Tom and Jerry without the horrific censoring of Tom's black homeowner, and I'll be happier than Porky Pig!!!

BJ

OK, cleanup time...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 20:38:00 +0000

Here's the deal. I have shelved Retro Fungi Radio permanently. I've also Cranky Disney Shareholder for now. Maybe (if I get into a deal with Shane R. Monroe) I'll un-shelve Cranky Disney, as he and his Dual Screen Radio buddy might want to do Cranky Disney with me, as they're Disney sluts.

Some changes at Muppetfandom...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Wed, 03 May 2006 20:05:00 +0000

Yes, folks, I have decided to make some changes to Muppetfandom. I have decided to jettison the automatic moderation of comments that I put into place after some dummy made an unrelated comment on one of my other blogs. It's too much of a pain in the neck to try to sift through all kinds of comments, some related, some not. I have decided this, and there's no turning back now. All I ask is that you either have something positive to say, that the comment is more than one line, or that your comments are related in some way, shape, form, or fashion to my posts.

Now, on to something else: I am making photoblogs for the Cranky Disney Shareholder show and the Retro Fungi Radio show. I need your feedback in order to see whether or not I should keep them up. I want to make these photo blogs separate from the actual podshow blogs. I am going to take photos anyways and publish them to a separate Blogger photoblog. If I get too much feedback to the contrary, I'll pull them. I will sample as many as possible to gauge how good or bad the reaction is. I am going to post on the podshow blogs to let people know what's going on.

BJ

Bram Cohen must be celebrating...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Wed, 03 May 2006 19:48:00 +0000

Wow, strange Mac OS 10.5 rumor making the Internet rounds. If true, this may have solved Apple's iTunes bandwidth issues for good. I'm going to go ahead and quote the MacOSRumors.com article:

"According to some of our oldest and most reliable sources within Apple's software development sector, Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" will include a system-level "BitTorrent" filesharing client that can be user-customized to 'donate' upstream Internet bandwidth for things like pushing Software Update packages to Leopard users, delivering iTunes Store content, and just about any purpose to which Apple puts its bandwidth.

The code in question was only recently developed, as part of a proposal that would probably not be part of the "Leopard Preview" delivered to third-party developers....but rather would be added to the operating system just prior to the "beta" stage that will follow later in the year.

Although implementing the code to secure the data traffic and break it up into pieces so small that individual users who enabled Sharing-Reward accounts would be unable to make any use of the data themselves is actually the easy part, getting Apple Legal and the executive suites to sign off on the concept will be a much larger challenge.

A somewhat similar p2p-based banwidth-sharing option was brought up during the 10.4 Tiger development cycle and dismissed out-of-hand because there were no good incentives for users to enter the shadowy world of peer-to-peer networking just to save Apple a few dollars. Now a group of developers at Apple think they have solved the most fundamental issues and want to bring the rest of the company on board.

Rewards would include credit at the iTunes Store and the Apple Store as well as other affililated offers like free airtime minutes for Apple's forthcoming "iPhone" and the like.

Uploads would use a unique port from other types of BitTorrent traffic so that network administrators can see it as separate and handle it accordingly."

Whoa. The movie industry will NEVER sign off on this, the bastards. Why must we be continually subjected to unintelligent retards basically saying the Internet is still a fad? I'm sorry, I don't get it. Comment if you have any kind of answers here.

BJ

Watch out for yellow snow, Nintendo fans...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 07:22:00 +0000

OK, the snappy titles are getting worse and worse. Nintendo's next-gen console, codenamed "Revolution" because Nintendo did not like where the industry was going, "disrupted" the space-time continuum for some diehard Nintendo fanboys yesterday. The Revolution is now called: The Wii. As in "We" (as in you and me), "Wee Wee" (as in to pee), "Wee" (meaning small) and "Whee" (expression of fun by idiotic 5-year-old boys). Oh, boy. Let the juvenile jokes by PS2/PS3 and XXXbox/360 fanboys commence. I am going to be getting one of these, regardless of the multi-faceted name Nintendo gave the thing.

Wincing in pain, I have to give yet another update on my 2 podshows. I am currently trying to get through final exams and then it will be okay to play around with microphones. I still have to fix crib notes and everything. When I am in Chicago on the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th of May, I'm going to try to find any opportunity I can to get E3 news (extroardinarily bad timing on their part). I was really hoping to go to E3 this year, but life intervenes yet again.

On The Cranky Disney Shareholder, I have decided to talk about Disney comics, a much-needed area of Disney podcasting that has not been covered yet (for some strange reason) on my first show, and at multiple times thereafter. Disney video games wil be another topic on the first show, and I'll talk about the recent annoucement about Disney's game publishing deal with Q Entertainment, makers of Meteos for Nintendo DS and the new Meteos in the pipeline, with me playing the E3 demo for that discussion on my DS if at all possible (flashing the firmware to get rid of that pesky health-warning screen has its benefits, you know).

On Retro Fungi Radio, I'm still trying to work out a deal between myself and Shane R. Monroe. If the deal goes through, I'll be on his show doing Nintendo-y things, and not be doing my own. I'm not quite sure just yet how it's a gonna work. My show has almost the same focus as his Retro Gaming Radio, save for the mostly Nintendo-centric content.

I will ask for donations and link to here when I mention it on my shows.

BJ

The DMCA, only MUCH worse...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 03:38:00 +0000

Oh my god. Special interests make our lives a living Hell once again.

CNet put up a scary story that is very likely backed by the movie, music, and software industries. Apparently a new bill is going through that will obstruct our right to no DRM'ed DVDs and CDs, and will re-open the issue of the Sony rootkits. I'm talking about the Intellectual Property Protection Act (IPPA). This law will make it a federal offense to circumvent DRM on DVDs and CDs, punishable by TEN YEARS in prison.

If this law goes through, the movie and music industry will get no money from me. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Nada. I almost never go to the movies anymore because they overcharge for just about everything. I almost never buy actual CDs anymore because I am not going to support an industry that overcharges for CDs and DVDs that you can buy on spindles for pennies on the dollar.

All the stuff I'm buying will be digital, and if the iTunes DRM is ALL WE GET, i'll not only buy music online, but also movies. I'm not going to buy overcharged DVDs and overcharged movie tickets and overcharged CDs, and overcharged everything. I cannot and will not support overcharged steaming piles of crap that the movie, music, and software industry wants to shove on us.

If you want to lower the $30.00 a person price to go to the movies, then fine. Be that way. But if you want to not lower the price, but jack it up even further, don't expect me to go to the movie theatres ever again. And don't expect to put me in prison for ten years for your monopolistic business practices. I feel that monopolistic business practices are the highest form of evil. By the way, Microsoft, don't expect me to buy Windows Vista, or any Microsoft product, ever again. Until you either get out of the way of the common consumer or stop paying government officials to shut their pie-holes about YOUR monopolistic business practices, you won't see me buying any Microsoft products. When I move to Macintosh, you're going to feel the pressure. You are going to see me not purchase ANY Microsoft products, unless it's free.

Bram Cohen, you had the right idea. Now how about using your signature charm to get the entertainment industry to give us LEGIT free full length movies and LEGIT free software distributed over a new LEGIT BitTorrent client? I, being autistic also, am behind you 100%. One of the things you can use to sway them over to a new legit BitTorrent client will be so they can circumvent piracy in a legal way, without screaming and crying to the government to toughen the penalty for piracy.

In fact, there's going to be some limited DRM code that is uncrackable by the hackers (it'll be a hyper-encrypted binary code) and can be used in any device, plus being burned to DVD. Basically, we'll allow the users to do whatever they want, and they have to pay a ONE-TIME donation fee before they can use it. That is better than free, folks. Let the movie industry embrace technology, not fight it (like the Betamax Supreme Court case, comment if you know what the official name for that case was).

Hey, MPAA, ESA, et al: If you are so much of a pansy to not play hardball with regards to piracy, just GIVE US WHAT WE WANT. Nothing more. You unintelligent pansies are pretending that the Internet never existed. You unintelligent pansies are making our lives Hell just because you seem to think the Internet never existed. You unintelligent pansies want nothing more than to make it as difficult as possible so you can continue that "protect your intellectual property" b.s.

I say to you, if you aren't willing to cater to even the most basic consumer, whose money is increasingly tighter these days, then screw you. If you are unwilling to agree to my terms that I have listed above for you to set yourselves right to the general public, then you can dissolve those monopolistic organizations effective immediately. If you aren't willing to sacrifice profit to get more profits in the long run, then you are obviously screwed-up and the Federal Trade Commission will be on you like white on rice.

Now, why can't we get websites that actually let us KEEP the movies we download for a nominal fee? The MPAA just will not give up on the digital-rental crap like Movielink, et al, and in so doing, just dig themselves a deeper grave. If the MPAA just gave us what we wanted, digital downloads we could keep forever, then this wouldn't be such an issue. The MPAA themselves are making mountains out of measly little ant hills. Let's nip this problem in the bud, and we can eliminate issues like piracy, abortion, cloning, and other issues that are just fluff, like a mountain out of a measly ant hill.

Let's nip piracy in the bud, and we won't have to hear your whining about piracy cutting into your increasingly-shrinking profits in the news each day.

Yikes...stranger things have happened...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 10:00:00 +0000

Oof. My old sleeping habits die hard. Anywho, I'm trying to make things easier for me, and I've decided to post here some status reports on both of the podcast shows I have in the works:

Retro Fungi Radio:

Dang, I am really pressed to tentatively finish my crib notes for the first show...I cannot believe what I have to do in order to get a relatively good sound quality right off the bat. I have to write down EVERYTHING that I have to say that isn't inside a flashback. That way, I can't have the excuse of not having copious notes...Although I show off my mad improv skillz (yes, with a "z") in the flashbacks, that isn't scripted half to death. I do, however, have to script the other segments to DEATH, and this is because this is what I am going to want, at the very least for the first couple of shows. If people complement me on my uber-confident delivery style, I'll continue doing it this way.

The Cranky Disney Shareholder:

Same here, but I haven't even started yet. I'll give another update later on, hopefully (as with Retro Fungi) divulging some of the contents of this month's show.

WRAP-UP:
So, I need to have some space to be my creative self, and knowing the full brunt of the next 2 weeks, it's gonna be a bitch trying to post here while I try to go into the "final push" toward the end of the year. College lets out early. Thank goodness for that though. Not my best stuff, trust me. Plus I need to get a sound setup so that I can record the flashbacks with very little sound disturbances. I'm going to use Radio Shack mics for now, at least until some kind soul donates a bunch of audio equipment for my use.

BJ

This is my last post for a while :(

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 01:24:00 +0000

Yes, you read that right. This is going to be my last post for awhile. This is only temporary, while I get my 2 podcasts off the ground: a Disney podcast and a retro gaming podcast. It will be very cool, and I will update when I finally get these podcasts off the ground.

Link dumpage...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 04:33:00 +0000

Holy cow. Chris Pirillo, the quintessential technogeek, saw a Broadway musical??? Of course, his fiancee Ponzi scored tickets to "Monty Python's Spamalot", which says a LOT.

He went with his friend who just so happens to be the producer for The Chris Pirillo Show, Jake Ludington.

http://chris.pirillo.com/blog/_archives/2006/3/1/1791428.html

Yipes, let's get that out of our system, shall we?

http://chris.pirillo.com/blog/_trackback/1791428

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Onwards and sideways...

In other strange news, Cat Schwartz (i mentioned her in an earlier post) is not only married (i guess it was pretty recent), but she is pregnant as well! Very strange.

http://www.catschwartz.com/plain.html

Onwards and sideways yet again...

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OK, this is too funny to be even real.

I was a HUGE fan of the old TechTV show "The Screen Savers", which G4 stupidly decided to can in favor of "Attack Of The Show", which is TSS on freaking steroids. Of course, I'm a fan of the old version of TSS, and Kate "Smackdown" Botello, the co-host before Patrick Norton took over (I think, but don't quote me). Anyways, Kate and Leo Laporte (another good tech guy) did this look back at their very first episode with a few choice snippets from their 2 pilot episodes, which are more like "Call For Help" than TSS. It's incredibly funny, even though this was written back in 1999 (just before Botello took her "Extended Play" gig).

http://www.g4tv.com/leolaporte/features/9123/A_Look_Back_at_Our_First_Episode_pg1.html

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Last link, I promise...

Here's a little background about this next thing. I am also (aside from everything else) a fanboy for the Phoenix Wright/Gyakuten Saiban series of video games. The recent Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney for the Nintendo DS was my first exposure to the series, and I want more (obviously).

So I wrote a VERY favorable player review over at Gamespot, which is a gaming news and information site. It doesn't have the best interface, so I'm treating you with a DIRECT LINK to my 10.0 review of Phoenix Wright.

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/adventure/phoenixwright/player_review.html?id=245639

All right, let's end this puppy!

Bad pun aside, I'm done.

A Muppet Personality Test that actually works? Sign me up!

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 20:47:00 +0000

Wow, what an interesting thing I found over at Mostly Muppet.com. Apparently, there's a GOOD Muppet personality test. You answer 5 questions about yourself and you get a character you're most like. I got this one the first time and I feel that it is highly accurate of myself.

You Are Fozzie Bear

"Wocka! Wocka!"You're the life of the party, and you love making people crack up.If only your routine didn't always bomb!You may find more groans than laughs, but always keep the jokes coming.

The Muppet Personality Test

http://www.blogthings.com/themuppetpersonalitytest/

Man, what an idea! Now if only all of these tests were just as accurate!

OK, so the poo has hit the fan...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 03:23:00 +0000

All right, I shall put my opinion forth on greedy, money-hungry jerks without the foul language. That's not what you came here to see. My opinion on these greedy, money-hungry jerks is that they have serious issues. Here is a partial list of greedy, money-hungry jerks:

Pat Robertson
George W. Bush
Dick Cheney
Ken Lay
Jerry Falwell
Les Moonves

With greedy, money-hungry jerks, the whole philosophy behind their existence (at least in their eyes) is that money is everything. I am not one because I feel that I'd rather have material stuff to leave my loved ones rather than a load of illegitimately acquired money to pay my final expenses (that's what life insurance is for, Dopey!).

I think that things only got bad in this country because our president seems to have a lot of oil money to pay for his campaign and WE HAVEN'T MADE A CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM BILL YET THAT SAYS YOU CAN'T USE ILLEGITIMATELY ACQUIRED MONEY!!!

Sorry for the screaming, but the point hopefully got across that I'd rather see people with legitimately acquired money run this country than people with illegitimately acquired money.

Wow, Muppet and Fraggle news! Finally!

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 00:21:00 +0000

Whoa, I can't even begin to fathom the fact that if I hadn't revamped my blog when I did, I wouldn't be posting to this blog very often.

BTW, my buddy Andrew has given us another link for a fan project making digital Fraggle puppets: http://machin-x.blogspot.com/2006/01/digital-fraggles.html

Wow, February 5th can't come soon enough! In case you didn't know, that's the day of the Super Bowl. There will be yet another Pizza Hut Super Bowl commercial featuring the Muppets. I shall reserve judgment until after I see it.

If you didn't know already, there's a new Fraggle Rock movie in development. It's heavily rumored that Jerry Nelson will not do Gobo. Only rumors at the moment.

I hope that I have not slighted my core audience, but if I have, go ahead and comment inside any of my entries.

Come on Nintendo (and Capcom)...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 21:49:00 +0000

OK, so I am not entirely thrilled with Nintendo's treatment of the Mother series (known in America as Earthbound).

Here's the deal: the official sequel to the SNES classic was attempted for the N64 back in 1996, but it was cancelled. Fast-forward to 2005, when Shigesato Itoi himself said that the sequel was being made for (of all things) the Game Boy Advance (it just came out that said game is being released April 30th)! Now there was another game for the Japanese NES. The game was called Mother (hence the name of the series). We almost got the NES version, so I am totally vexed by Nintendo deciding on their own NOT to release the Mother 1+2 collection for us American GBA owners. I'd like to see Nintendo giving us American videogamers some respect.

Either that, or I can export myself to Japan (Probably only when I am considered literate in Japanese, which means I have to learn over 2,000 kanji! Yikes! Is there a good Japanese course around that deals with speaking AND reading/writing?)

It may be good for me in the long run, since game companies like Nintendo and Capcom are notorious for not releasing their best stuff in America. With Capcom, let's see a little less Mega Man and a bit more Phoenix Wright/Gyakuten Saiban. Nintendo has some major dreck as well (Metroid, anyone?) and needs to release the Mother series properly in America. Just my opinion. You people didn't come to my blog to have someone who (somewhat) agrees with you, you came for the content. So it happens that I am not a huge fan of Metroid (it seems to me like a Resident Evil before there was a Resident Evil), so I would like to try some of the wackiest stuff that only the Japanese can get away with (such as Gyakuten Saiban, Sakura Taisen, Mother, etc).

I seem to go on and on about things I'm passionate about, so if I offended anyone, I sincerely apologize.

Movie Ramblings...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 22:00:00 +0000

OK, so I don't get why people are so up in arms over something totally legitimate. It's about damn time somebody like Steven Soderbergh challenged the traditional release window. The movie industry has screwed us over for far too long, and they've paid for it thanks to piracy. I am going to support Soderbergh by buying "Bubble" on DVD. I am not your average movie fan. I hate how the big movie theatre chains charge far too much for a movie, over charge for popcorn and drinks, and then the movie totally sucks. I am unhappy how much excrement they've pushed on us these past few years. The only movies I went to see were ones I wanted to see, not anything that I didn't know about buzz-wise ahead of time. I did not go to see one Disney movie this past year because of the excrement that Disney's has pushed upon us. I will not bow to the movie industry, and I am not happy with them at all. I will buy "Bubble" on DVD because I like that kind of business model, and it is the way the industry HAS to go in order to combat piracy. I am not the kind of person who gets screwed over easily.

More random randomness...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 23:51:00 +0000

OK, so I just got wind of the X-Play vidcast. How interesting. Wish I had a video iPod. Adam Sessler is so funny being his amnesiac geeky self. Morgan Webb is ok, but Kate Botello was better as a female foil for Adam. Morgan is too stupid, too geeky, or too both to be a female foil for Adam.

Well, I finished my exams for the semester tonight. Holy cow, I thought I'd never get through this semester.

I'm really enthused about this Perfect Dark Zero, so I will try to get that as well as Kameo when I get my 360 (if I get my 360). That may be just the thing to convert this spoiled Nintendo gamer to the XBOX 360.

I know that I am not a perfect person, but I may need to go to sleep soon. It's about 7:30 eastern time and I am bushed.

I hope that I can be a better person for what I'm venting on here.

Random Randomness...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 07:36:00 +0000

Wow. I first saw Chris Pirillo on Call For Help on the old TechTV network. The Chris Pirillo Show is one of my favorite podcasts and most of the time, the audio is good. Of the two women who've worked with him, I think Ponzi is better, and I'll tell you why. Cat Schwartz was just too geeky for my tastes. Ponzi is (at the very least) a normal chick. Normal being the type of person who is addicted to games like "The Sims". I knew several who were addicted to "The Sims" at one point. Wow.

Speaking of WOW, I remember when I was watching Call for Help with Pirillo and he showed us his computer and there was WARCRAFT 3 on his desktop!!! My God, major geek envy! BTW, Chris doesn't cover Mac OS X anymore. Strange.

Also, he got an XBOX 360!!! GEEK ENVY!!! I hated the original XBOX, for the main reason of the games just didn't cut it for me, a super-spoiled Nintendo gamer. Maybe Major Nelson (aka Larry Hryb) can make playing XB360 fun for me, by (hopefully) putting in the old Donkey Kong arcade game. I'm thinking of playing that Perfect Dark game for 360. I never played it on the N64 and I want to try playing PDZ on the 360.

My gamertag is DonaldDuckFan86, so if you have a 360 already, go ahead and add me as a "friend". Hopefully, I will be getting a 360 soon and will *hopefully* be online. However, don't count on my being online that often because I travel a bit and I also don't care for the college IT department bandwidth. The college IT dept. has to can certain things due to low bandwidth.

Broadband through Power Lines (BPL) is a very viable option at this point because I am a bandwidth hog, what with iTunes and all. However, that "in-house" BPL sounds like a better idea than the "access" BPL mainly because I like my radio listening and I'd have a real problem if I had an "access" BPL unit which has possibilities for interference.

I have to admit, I have an interesting history of friends...all women...Most men I cannot trust with a 10-foot maypole. Maybe that will change, but I had a really bad experience with a guy in middle school...don't ask...

Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 3 Review

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 20:44:00 +0000

OK, so, as promised, I will now review Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 3.

You know the drill: the good, bad, and downright ugly. No background this time.

THE GOOD:
OK, so it's Looney Tunes. I am a HUGE fan of Porky Pig, and it was really cool to see some of his old black-and-white cartoons here. My two favorite Porky b-&-w cartoons on this set are "Porky's Road Race" (which has a BUNCH of celebrity caricatures, including a big-nosed W.C. Fields!), and Porky's Party (the silkworm gag was totally freaking priceless).

An introduction by Whoopi Goldberg about the LT being products of their times, etc. Pretty good, but I had one major beef with it. See the bad about that.

One of the best cartoons on this set is "To Beep Or Not to Beep," which is a Roadrunner-Coyote cartoon. The rock-dropping-on-head-and-making-the-coyote-an-accordian-gag was priceless! Now, there are three other cartoons I want to mention: "Duck! Rabbit! Duck!" is the third cartoon in the "Wabbit Season" trilogy. I had never seen it before this collection. Great addition to the classic "Rabbit Fire".

Then there's "Rocket Squad". One of my favorites on this collection, and I hadn't seen it in a long time. They really cleaned it up, and it's way better than I remember. Then there's "Steal Wool", a Sam Sheepdog-Ralph Wolf cartoon. I had not seen it before this collection, and it is probably one of the best cartoons ever.

Now on to the bad:

THE BAD:
OK, about that intro by Whoopi...it's the same one on each disc. I can skip it. It gets really annoying after the first viewing. I thought it was a different one on each disc. Bad move by Warner Bros.

Some of the bonus features are a MAJOR double-dip. The Philbert pilot and the Private Snafu cartoon "Spies" were on the first set, albeit not in your run-of-the-mill form: in the special "Toon Heads: The Lost Cartoons". Why can't we get more Toon Heads episodes on DVD? What the hell is going on at Turner Broadcasting? Seth Miller (who runs MostlyMuppet.com), if you're reading this, please contact me and give a major explanation on this issue and the issue of Boomerang turning into Cartoon Network Jr. Turner needs some serious feedback and somebody in charge of the Boomerang network who can actually appreciate the classic cartoons they air.

Enough nitpicky stuff. On to the downright ugly:

THE DOWNRIGHT UGLY:
Well, some of the cartoons are rehashes of older cartoons, like Birds Anonymous. Some think it's the best of the Tweety and Sylvester series, but I disagree strongly. I hate this cartoon. I much prefer "Tree Cornered Tweety" and "Puddy Tat Twouble" to this one.

Some have complained about how creepy the cover art is. I have to agree, but "creepy" does NOT describe the art. The term is more like "soft-core porn".

MY VERDICT:

Out of 5 Porky Pigs, Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 3 gets 5. Most of my nitpicky stuff was really nitpicky and I like the collection anyway.

Sorry about not updating...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 06:42:00 +0000

I am truly sorry for not updating MuppetFandom. It seems that I am stupid and I misplaced what my info was here. I'm signed up with so many different things on the Internet that I forgot.

I also apologize for not stating the purpose of my blog. Basically, I will ramble on about Muppets, science fiction, cartoons, anything that's on my mind at that time.

On topic, I just got the Muppet Show Season 1 boxset a couple months ago. Here's my review:

MUPPET SHOW: SEASON 1

OK, so some things never change. Most of these episodes I had never seen before ever. I particularly like the Candice Bergen, Sandy Duncan, Charles Aznavour, Avery Schreiber, Harvey Korman, Joel Grey, Florence Henderson, and Twiggy episodes the most.

So, here is my comments on the good, bad, and downright ugly of this set. But first, a bit of background on The Muppet Show.

BACKGROUND:
The Muppet Show was Jim's idea even before Sesame Street began its long run in 1969. His initial idea was for a show to be called The Zoocus, a mix of the words "zoo" and "circus", two terms which aptly described the backstage portions of The Muppet Show a decade later. A character on that particular show concept, Carburetor Jones, was actually the predecessor to Scooter. But, Jim had really rough going at first. After Sesame Street was a major success, Jim found it more difficult to promote this other idea. Most of the bigwigs running the show at that point thought Henson's creations were meant solely for children. Henson, on the other hand, believed he could reach a family audience, which would be gathered around the TV for "TV time." This is what he wanted. Then, a major breakthrough happened. Around 1975 or so, the Federal Communiucations Commission paved the way for "syndication," meaning that the stations could take certain prime times away from the local stations. Then Lord Lew Grade, a British TV magnate, asked Henson to do the show, but would he go to England? Henson wasn't too keen on syndication, but he thought that it was now or never. So, Henson took Lord Grade up on his offer.

The first season was an "working out the kinks" period. Most, if not all, the guest stars this season and, up to the Rudolf Nureyev episode in Season 2, were all contacts of Jim Henson and Bernie Brillstein, Henson's manager, who also worked with the original SNL cast. After Nureyev appeared, more guest stars wanted to do The Muppet Show. This was good for several reasons. First, most of the guests were comfortable working with the Muppets. Second, these were all Henson and Brillstein's friends, which meant that people such as Candice Bergen, Edgar Bergen, and Harvey Korman could help iron out the kinks of the show.

THE GOOD:

Well, some things never change. It's the Muppets, for crying out loud! Most, if not all, the episodes are "classic Muppet Show" material. Now, on to the bad.

THE BAD:
As I said before, the first season of The Muppet Show was a "working out the kinks" period. Also, some pilot episodes were filmed and, as such, aired in the middle of the season! However, during the season, the writers fixed a lot of the problems with Fozzie, Gonzo, and Piggy. That made for some serious confusion. The only other problem I had with it was that Gonzo (even though he won't be his current self until Season 2) was an "artist" with a knack for creative stunts which always backfired on Gonzo. Gonzo's perpetually morose expression could not be helped. He was a puppet from "The Great Santa Claus Switch," and was called "Cigar Box Frackle" because he lived in a cigar box. Jim Henson himself made "Cigar Box Frackle" and pitched in at the shop whenever he could. The creative stunts are not exactly good this season. By Season 2, Gonzo was doing much better stunts.

Now, on to the downright ugly:

THE DOWNRIGHT UGLY:
OK, some of the episodes really suck. I'm serious! I have refrained from watching some episodes because either the guest star is a really bad one, or the name sounds all wrong. Take Mummenschanz, for example. It sounds like a bad German way to say "Mummy Chances". Just my opinion, however.

My Verdict:
OK, so the good far outweighs the bad and ugly (maybe that's my inner Muppet fan coming out of the closet again).

On a scale of 5 Gonzos, The Muppet Show: Season 1 gets 4 Gonzos.

Next time: A review of the Looney Tunes: Golden Collection Volume 3 boxset.

First entry...

noreply@blogger.com (BJ Wanlund) — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 16:47:00 +0000

Ok, I just found THE COOLEST site on the internet. I am a HUGE fan of the Muppets and am a puppeteer (sort of) myself. Statler and Waldorf are the two curmudgeons who trade jabs from the balcony in the Muppet Theatre on The Muppet Show. They are now doing a webseries a-la Ebert and Roeper on Movies.com. The link is: http://movies.go.com/moviesdynamic/muppets/

Major thank yous go out to Andrew at http://puppetvision.blogspot.com for the CORRECT link.