The Original Where's Waldo

     Anyone out there remember Loo Kee from the original She-Ra cartoon? Well I thought it'd be fun to give him a bit of a redesign.

Little People

      Fisher Price's "Little People" are still a thing... but they'll never be as ICONIC as when they were these happy little choking hazards.*

*opinion

Garfield and Friends (1988 - 1994)

     It's time to highlight another one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons aaaaaaand... you know who it is. Let's Kablama Slam!

The Premise: The original grumpy cat, Garfield lives with his owner Jon Arbuckle and loyal-but-dimwitted dog sidekick Odie. This lazy orange tabby loves sleeping, eating lasagna, and (for whatever reason) HATES Mondays! Seriously… why does a cat care what day of the week it is? 

 

     Explaining Garfield feels as ridiculous as explaining Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny (the latter of which, I actually might do when I get around to The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show) but that’s what I’m doing with this thing, so here goes, I guess. Garfield and Friends is based on the beloved comic strip by Jim Davis. The strip was originally titled Jon and focused more on Garfield’s lovable loser of an owner, but that quickly changed as the focus of the strip shifted to the REAL star and Garfield took off as one of the most successful comic strips of all time!

 

Poor Jon.

 

     After several primetime specials, I guess Davis finally realized that we wouldn’t mind watching Garfield and his shenanigans once a week, and thus his Saturday morning cartoon was born.

 

     There’s always been a special place in my heart for cantankerous cartoon characters, so I was naturally a fan of this show. I especially loved the episodes where Garfield would try (and fail) to dispatch his annoyingly adorable fellow feline Nermal. It’s not cute to constantly tell others you’re cute, Nermal! Of course, my favorite character was and always will be Odie. What can I say? While I do love the grumpy characters... I'm also a dog person.

     Several of these Saturday morning cartoon shows would sometimes change their theme song just for the sake of something new, I suppose. In the case of Garfield and Friends, I loved both theme songs equally, so I thought I’d brake things up with the second version.

 

     The other half of this is, of course, the “and Friends” part of the show, which referred to the cast of barnyard characters that starred in the segment, U.S. Acres. Although, I don’t recall ever seeing Garfield interact with these guys, and the whole rural aesthetic of life on the farm doesn’t really seem like something Garfield would find appealing, so I don’t know if I’d necessarily call them “friends.” But it has a nice ring to it.

 

The Premise: What was known as "Orson’s Farm" to audiences outside the United States, U.S. Acres features a hard-working bookworm… or… pig …named Orson and his colorful cast of fellow farm animals such as the wisecracking Roy Rooster, sheep siblings Lanolin and Bo, and the oh-so-cowardly Wade Duck.

 

     U.S. Acres was a separate comic strip that Jim Davis started working on shortly before Garfield and Friends premiered. The strip itself only ran for three years, but Orson and the gang were able to live on for several more years in their much more popular animated format. 

 

     My favorite thing about U.S. Acres was that it allowed for more diversity in its storytelling. While the Garfield segments always centered on Garfield (obviously), episodes of U.S. Acres gave each of the cast their own time in the spotlight. My favorite character probably has to be Wade. Being a coward, Wade wore a pool floaty because he’s probably afraid of drowning. That, in and of itself, is funny for a duck, but what I loved most was that Wade’s floaty had a tiny replica of his own head on the front of it, which would inexplicably change expressions to duplicate the one on Wade’s actual face.

 

Cartoons, man. They’re just the best!

 

 

Kablama Slam! Fun Fact: Garfield is named after Jim Davis’ grandfather who he described as large and cantankerous. Maybe he hated Mondays as well. I mean… they really are the worst!  

My Visit to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge

     My favorite park in Walt Disney World has always been Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It’s themed to match the inside of my very soul and has everything I love most: Pixar, classic movies, Muppets, Indiana Jones, and of course… Star Wars! Ever since the addition of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge (an entire section that completely immerses you in the Star Wars universe) was announced, I’ve been chomping at the bit to get back to my favorite park and let the immersion commence. As of writing this, I’ve been to Batuu twice and, as anyone who knows me could safely assume, I have some thoughts!

 

     So let’s get into it! Here’s my review of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge – the good, the bad, and… the good! …Mainly the good.

 

Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run

     I’ll start with the attractions… specifically what I consider THE attraction! It’s still crazy to say this, but I’ve flown in the Millennium Falcon! I piloted the thing! On multiple occasions! The most magical part of Walt Disney World is the ability to make you feel like a kid and this was no exception. When my daughter and I first stepped foot onto that ship, we were BOTH giddy eight-year-olds!

 

     As with all Disney attractions, the amount of detail that went into designing this attraction was superb! There’s the holochess table, the Jedi training droid, the chair where Han sits and is all, “I call it luck.” My daughter repeatedly asked if I was okay as she fanned my teary eyes. It was just so beautiful.

 

     Our first visit was in July of 2020, just a few weeks after reopening. Now, under normal conditions, it’s six people to a cockpit and everyone is randomly assigned a position: Pilot, Gunner, and Engineer. Everyone wants to be a pilot. Due to the safety precautions in place because of the pandemic, however, my fellow Star Wars fan and I had the entire cockpit to ourselves! Every time we rode! I can’t think of a better way to first experience this attraction, and to answer my daughter’s question – No. I don’t think I was okay. I was a blubbery mess.

     As much as I do adore this ride, I have a few tiny nitpicks. The main one being that the “mission” you’re on takes place in a Corelian ship yard. It’s a very bland and unrecognizable setting in my opinion and I think it would have been better to have been stealing cargo from a Star Destroyer or something more iconic. Also, this attraction is basically Jim Cummings: The Ride as his character, Hondo Ohnaka, is talking your ear off the entire time. Stop telling me what to do and just do it yourself, Hondo!!

 

     Now that I hear myself say this, however, I’m not sure I’d call it a complaint. It’s a very interactive ride and someone has to tell you what to do! Who better than my favorite voice actor?

 

Rise of the Resistance

     The other attraction in Galaxy’s Edge is quite the hot commodity. Rather than just waiting in line to ride like you would any other attraction, Disney requires guests to make reservations for what they call a “boarding group.” This prevents guests from having to wait 5 hours in a line that stretches all the way to the front gate, but it also creates an air of exclusivity where people who might not even like Star Wars feel compelled to ride just because it’s the thing! On our first visit, I attempted to get boarding passes at the exact second they became available THREE different times throughout the day, and THREE different times I was too late! I felt like that movie trope where the guy at the night club stands at the front of the line watching the bouncer lower the velvet rope and letting all the attractive people into the night club ahead of him.

 

     But that’s just the way the game is played, I guess. It’s all good now because, on our second visit, WE were the attractive people… and boy did I feel beautiful! Rise of the Resistance is a combination of elements from pretty much every type of Disney attraction! There’s impressive animatronics, projectors, trackless vehicles, simulators… the only thing it doesn’t have is a it’s a small world-esque song to get stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

 

     There’s a moment before guests load into their vehicles where you enter this GIGANTIC hangar of a Star Destroyer. The doors slide open and there you are, face-to-face with a battalion of shiny animatronic Stormtroopers! It was at this moment that the ride managed to break down and left my daughter and I stuck in this room for about 20 minutes. Everyone else in the group groaned and complained but not us. We sat there directly in front of those Stormtroopers feeling like kids locked in a toy store! 

 

     We were eventually ushered out and given redemption passes that would allow us to return at any point in the day after the ride was repaired and hop right on with virtually no wait! It’s funny how that aforementioned air of exclusivity thing feels less pretentious when you’re not the one being excluded.

 

Docking Bay 7

     I don’t want to just fly spaceships and look at Stormtroopers though! I want to Eat, Pray, Love me some Star Wars also! The primary place to eat at Galaxy’s Edge is Docking Bay 7. This quick-service restaurant is meant to look as if the cook just unloaded a bunch of weird space foods from a dingy freighter crate and served them up to the guests… I realize that may not be the most appetizing of descriptions, but this fanboy was already ordering a second helping before he walked through the sliding doors!

 

     The culinary wizards at Disney deserve a huge pat on the back for this one! Passing off real foods as weird stuff that we’ve never heard of, but would still like to eat, is very impressive to me. Originally, each item on the menu had some fake spacey name to match the theming of the land. There was Shaak Roast, Endorian Tip Yip, Yobshrimp, etc. Unfortunately, this was changed to accommodate people without the patience to read the item descriptions.

 

You know it’s chicken, Karen! JUST LET ME HAVE THIS!!

 

Ronto Roasters

     Speaking of eating aliens, next up is Ronto Roasters, home of the famous Ronto Wrap! (For whatever reason, that name doesn’t need clarifying.) This place isn’t so much a restaurant per se. It’s more of a snack bar type eatery with, like everything else here, a Star Wars overhaul. Built around a giant fire-pit where a droid roasts what I assume is our meal over a podracer engine, Ronto Roasters serves up a sausage wrap that’s truly OUT OF THIS WORLD!

 

Yes… I just said that… I’m not proud of myself.

 

     I love this thing so much that my amazing wife figured out how to make it at home! Be careful though. While tasty, it’s a little heavy, so don’t go riding Slinky Dog directly afterwards or this dog might slink back uuu… That’s disgusting. I apologize.

 

Milk Stand

     Is there a beverage more synonymous with Star Wars than Blue Milk?! Flying the Millennium Falcon and being able to drink this stuff are the biggest no-brainers of the whole park! I find it odd that most of reviews I read go on and on about how much they dislike the taste of the Blue Milk. I, personally, think it tastes like someone blended a bunch of Sweet Tarts into a slushy, but the taste isn’t the point! You’re here to be immersed! When Luke sat in that dessert cave called a kitchen and sipped that gluey blue liquid, did it look tasty?? Or when he squeezed the green stuff out of that walrus thing’s teat, did anyone think, “Mmm! Betcha that’s refreshing!?”

 

     No! Of course not! The Star Wars universe is not a pleasant place, but immersion is what we want, so plunk down your $8 dollars and… Wow… $8 dollars??? …fine. Whatever. Plunk down your $8 dollars and do your best to enjoy that frosty cup of immersion!

 

Shopping

     Of course, the whole immersion thing carries over to merchandise, as well. I hit the spending pretty hard on our first trip. There’s just so many things that look like they came right from the movies: lightsabers, kloo horns, lizard monkeys, sabaac cards… I even bought a little pair of chance cubes to hang over the dashboard of my mom car as if it were the Falcon itself! 

 

    Galaxy’s Edge offers two places to shop: the Batuu Marketplace and Dok Ondar’s Den of Antiquities, and between the two of them, you’ll find pretty much every item you’ve ever wanted from a Star Wars movie… and even a few that you didn’t know you wanted, but you did! You totally did!

 

Droid Depot

I take that back! There’s a third place to shop: Droid Depot!

 

     Back before there was a Galaxy’s Edge, Droid Depot was what they called the little tables in the gift shops where you could assemble your own 3.75 scale R2 unit. They even had little sorcerer hats and mouse ears that they could wear… I thought it was great! So when Disney announced this more involved (not to mention more expensive) version, I initially thought, “Meh. We’re good.” But then my sweet little girl was like, “Ooooh! I want to do that!!” and I instantly changed my entire outlook. She spent the months before the trip saving up the hefty $100 it cost to build one. She researched everything online so she knew exactly what was available as to not be overwhelmed with decision making on the day of, and then, with a proud smile on her face, handed the cashier her own money along with a confident “No thank you” when they tried to upsell her on accessories. It was adorable.

 

     I guess my only complaint with Droid Depot is that the color palette of droids is a little limited. That and none of the droids have that weathered look that goes hand-in-hand with Star Wars. Then again, these droids are right off of the assembly line so I guess it makes sense that they look their best.

 

     I nitpick as we nerds are prone to do but overall, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is everything I wanted it to be! With the same fondness that I remember watching the original trilogy for the first time, my parents rushing my brothers and I to a garage sale directly afterwards to buy us a bunch of original action figures, and acting out my own adventures with those action figures while dreaming about actually visiting this spectacular universe… in the same way as ALL OF THAT, I will always remember my first trip to Galaxy’s Edge and how that childhood dream became as much of a reality as it ever possibly could.

 

     I still haven’t been to Oga’s Cantina or Savi’s Workshop so I’ll have to add on those reviews after I inevitably revisit this magical place. Until then, I’ll leave you with the expression shared among the citizens of Batuu: “May the Spires Keep You!”

 

…

 

Okay. THAT is one thing I would definitely change! You have decades worth of well-established material to draw from, Disney! There’s no need to crap out new catchphrases!

 

Just say, MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU! 

Huzzah!

     Disneyland officially reopens today! I've been to Walt Disney World a couple of times in my life, but only once to Disneyland... well... so far! 

     While I enjoyed pretty much all the classic attractions, (Pirates of the Caribbean, it's a small world, etc.) the one that stood out as my absolute favorite was one that I don't hear talked about too often and certainly deserves a lot of praise! I'm referring to Storytelling at the Royal Theatre! For anyone who might not be aware, this attraction is located in the small Fantasy Faire section in an open air theater just to the left of Sleeping Beauty Castle. Each show is a 20 minute retelling of a famous Disney fairy tale (usually Tangled or Beauty and the Beast) but done so in fast-paced vaudeville fashion by the "loquacious lovers of legend and lore..." Well, here. I'll just show you.

     I love this thing. You go in thinking it's just a quick recap of these classics that we've all seen a million times, but then you quickly realize it's waaaay more! There's gags, live piano, gags, the kind of obscure references that make you feel good when you notice, and all performed live by a small cast of incredibly talented people several times a day! And since I like to draw the things that I love, here's some Park Pals I made for the attraction.

     I doubt that this show will be back when the park reopens, but hopefully the curtain will be going up for these versatile viscounts again... and soon!

Family is the Greatest Footstool of All!

     I’m really going to miss the DuckTales reboot. It’d be really easy to complain that such a great show was canceled after only three seasons, but instead I guess I’ll just focus on how great those three seasons were.

 

     In a world that feels like we get waaay more reboots and remakes than we do original content, it’s refreshing to have a show like DuckTales that’s somehow both! Here’s hoping that we’ll get a spinoff or two that keeps the wheels turning on this Duckverse gold mine that Disney is just sitting on.

Over 40 Feet High

 "Grape Ape."

                - Grape Ape

Total Sus

Captain N: The Game Master (1989 - 1991)

     Welcome back to the Saturday Morning Kablama Slam! - a segment where I showcase some of my favorite Saturday morning cartoon shows! This next one gets a real 1-UP on some of the other animated series. See what I did there?

The Premise: Teenager Kevin Keene and his loyal dog Duke are transported through a mysterious portal into another dimension known as Videoland. (But… let’s be clear! The dude’s INSIDE the Nintendo!) There, Kevin dons the moniker of Captain N: The Game Master and joins forces with Mega Man, Simon Belmont, and Kid Icarus to save Videoland from the evil Mother Brain!

     This is one that I absolutely loved as a kid but, in my social circles at least, is pretty obscure these days. I went as the titular character a few years ago for Halloween and spent the whole day explaining who I was supposed to be. I finally ended up just saying that I was a high school student… from Nathan High School?... who carries a laser gun? Whatever. Can I just have some candy, please?

 

     The show got its start when Nintendo Power Magazine (another cherished relic from my childhood) published a “Captain Nintendo” comic strip. The comic’s creator Randy Studdard pitched the character as the star of his own Saturday morning cartoon, as well as the company spokes-character… I guess if things somehow fell through with… you know… SUPER MARIO??? Nintendo ultimately decided to adapt the property into a cartoon series but supposedly did so without crediting or compensating Studdard. Ah, the sexy but cruel world of video game cartoon shows, amiright?!

 

     My first memory of Captain N is having to get up extra early to watch it. I loved it THAT much! I also remember there not being any merchandise for the show. There were no action figures, no playsets, certainly not any Halloween costumes! I find this odd for a Saturday morning cartoon that ran for three seasons. I guess the product the show was pushing was the Nintendo itself, along with its many games. This is funny considering that many of the show’s characters aren’t exactly on brand. Castlevania vampire-hunter Simon Belmont is a blonde narcissist, Kid Icarus has some weird speech thing where he adds a ‘-us’ suffix to random words, King Hippo is green, Donkey Kong wears a shower cap, and Mega Man is a robot child-man with a tinted visor! I mean… What is that about?!

 

     I guess if the showrunners used more direct adaptations, they would have had to give some credit where it was due, and that’s not a practice they were apparently fond of. 

...

Snap.

 

Kablama Slam! Fun Fact: Kevin Keene earned his Varsity letter jacket for swimming. Probably not at Nathan High School though.