Spiderman

Hope you remember Spiderman the animated series from the nineties. This was one of thew many cartoons pitched by Marvel to get their characters to wider audiences and they worked. Spiderman along with X-men were my favorites as a kid. I have to admit Spiderman holds up nicely for story and character development but not so much for animation.

Spiderman did not have the same funding and quality of animation behind it equal to Batman but it was still good for its time. If you can get past the animation I am sure you will find some awesome voice choices for a few of the characters and some great stories that really introduce you nicely into the world of Spiderman. I have to admit watching this series felt like watching an animated version of the comics, which in hindsight was awesome but you can’t miss many of the episodes.

I am a fan of the comics myself and I gotta admit this show partially was to  blame for that. This is a testament for most of these television shows  based from their comic book counterparts such as Batman, X-men and Spiderman. This is a great way to get new readers into comics, especially when done correctly and Spiderman was one of the ones to get hit all the right buttons in my opinion, which is why you may want to give this a look over.

Now I have watched this series recently on Netflix myself and the show does actually have some great things to offer even for adults and I highly recommend giving this show a peek if you are a fan of Spiderman or at least want a place to start. Now there is a part of the Spiderman animated series you should never watch in my opinion and its name Spiderman Unlimited, a sequel series that  never should have been and the world seems to agree with me.

Spiderman Unlimited was created to compete with Batman Beyond, but never in this show did the premise feel right to begin with. This series could have worked if done correctly and if more of the stable Spiderman characters were in the series to begin with like Mary Jane, and this felt like unfamiliar territory for many Spiderman fans which is ultimately one of the reasons this show failed in my opinion.

That all aside Spiderman is awesome and we can end tonight with a guitar riff nineties theme, which seemed to plague a lot of cartoons in the nineties. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZw64rBswqc 

Fire a Spider tracer to this show 

Batman

Batman the animated series was great in its character development, designs and animations. This was one of the things in the nineties that had an amazing team. Honestly this was the series that made me a Batman fan. Still to this day whenever I read comics I always hear Kevin Conroy’s voice as Batman/Bruce Wayne and Mark Hamill’s voice as the Joker.

The creators of this series, Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski really had a love of the source material and wanted to make something that everyone could enjoy. One could really feel the love for the universe and the characters, hell this series did so well they continued the DC animated universe with Superman the Animated series, Static Shock, Batman Beyond, and even the Justice League series. I love all of these series and they are all highly recommended if you have never seen them.

When you do watch the series again or even for the first time I hope you enjoy the introduction and evolution of one of my favorite characters Harley Quinn .This character was originally created during the television series by one of the writers of the series Paul Dini She was originally just a female character to offset Joker, but she quickly became her own character and evolved beyond the Joker even becoming a best friend to Poison Ivy . This is amazing in hindsight, especially since I know how hard it can be to introduce a new character into an already established comic  universe like Batman.

Harley Quinn was awesome but everyone was written spectacularly  in this show like Batman/Bruce Wayne. He was written in the sense of a  detective who had a deep voice that knew how to scare his enemies to get what he wanted, which was well shown by Kevin Conroy. In turn though Conroy did also show a lighter version to his tone of voice when he was speaking as Bruce Wayne, which showed how Bruce Wayne was the disguise and Batman was the true identity, and honestly this showed a great dynamic between the two characters that were in actuality the same person but somehow still felt different.

 I can’t say enough good things about this show and even if I do I might be here all night so to best understand why I like this show I think it is best you watch it for yourself and find your favorite episodes. I know I’ve lost count of my favorites because I think most all of them are great. So i think I will end tonight’s post  giving a few episodes I recommend:

Heart of Ice
Harlequinade
Christmas with the Joker
Two Face part 1 and 2
Beware the Gray Ghost
Feat of Clay part 1 and 2 
Jokers Favor
Perchance to Dream
Almost Got Im
Birds of  a Feather
Harley and Ivy
Harley’s Holiday
Holiday Knights
Growing Pains
Baby-Doll

Told you I have a long list hope you enjoy my picks and comment on ones you might like anyway  I am off to bed to join the night and remember the Bat is always watching 

Invader Zim

Hope you remember this guy, because if you don’t he might take the advantage and try to take over the world. Here let me remind you so are defenses are still strong http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6k12Z-XjNQ . Yes sir its Invader Zim, on a mission from the Tall Ones to take over Earth.

Mind you the take over plan was a ruse by the Tall Ones to get rid of Zim to begin with, but I am not going to go into too much detail as it may ruin some of the jokes for you. Though I doubt anyone could ruin these great jokes, even with spoilers because they were written that well. 

I recently watched the entire series and I gotta say I still love this series, not only because of the jokes either. This series had a great cast of characters and they were written remarkably well towards their attitudes for example Professor Membrane is written as a genius super scientist. The kick is this character embodies eccentric, as an example here’s a collage of his funniest moments I found on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGyYGe2H6EA. Hopefully you had a good laugh at those great scenes, he was one of the best characters on the show in my honest opinion. 

A lot of people remember this show for being random but in actuality this show had some very smart undertones to go with the random jokes. If you ever watch the show again, or even for the first time pay attention to the story and the undertones and get ready for some pretty deep laughs. Ultimately the show follows Invader Zim of course and it is laughable how he presents himself on  Earth.

Zim is an alien invader pretending to be a human child and he is clearly terrible at it, but it works because none of the humans seemed to care, and therefore didn’t see what was in front of them. Now the clever joke here is that there were two characters that knew Zim’s secret Dib and his sister Gaz, but Gaz could care less about Zim’s secret as she was in her own world and had her own problems. Dib on the other hand was a fan of the paranormal and scifi and he wanted to capture Zim or defeat him before he could take over the world and this is where the real comedy came from for the show.

The characters of Zim and Dib really worked well together, these guys embodied the same idea of Tom and Jerry or even Sylvester and Tweety, where one is the prey and the other is the victim. The things this series did though allowed them to make it seem fresh by bringing it to an extreme with high tech toys and machines, as well as allowing each character turn at prey and victim. many times over. sadly this show only lasted the one season. You can buy this season box set or watch it on Netflix, I know I recommend it.

 Gonna sign off with Gir signing the Doom song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqcn_TPu4qQ  A character that’s so random he can’ t be fully explained 

 

Freak Out!

Hope you remember the blue nut ball we all used to love as kids named Freakazoid, if not here’s a reminder http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt5xhi6MTpE. Freakazoid was a favorite in the nineties for me. He was a ball of random surrounded by somewhat normal people, or for  whatever passed as normal in this television series. The kicker with Freakazoid was that he was the hero though.

A strange hero to say the least, a man who had absorbed all the knowledge and power of the internet. This guy became the walking embodiment of the internet as we know it today, random references and comments come to life to annoy and confuse villains into defeat. Whether the creators knew that this show was ahead of it’s time or not we may never know, but because it was ahead of it’s time it made it one of those great nostalgia shows that gets better with age.

I recently watched a few episodes of this before posting here today and I have to admit I am still a  big fan, probably more so now as the show had great animation and the references mostly still hold up today. Seriously if you haven’t seen this show in awhile or just haven’t experiences your first watch through of it I highly recommend it, whether you are an adult or a child I am sure you will find something to laugh at in this show.

Heck  they even knew that Freakazoid was too much at times so they had cut away arcs and characters, such as Lord Bravery. He was a hilarious British super hero and nothing went his way. People would laugh at his costume, think he was a joke and even his wife wanted him to get a proper job. One of my favorite episodes with this character was when he wanted to get legal documentation for his name and it started this entire outfit that you need to see to believe. This is how good comedy is written because you don’t see it coming  

The great thing this show does is make the laughs come from anywhere and everywhere. The characters are funny, if only because you can relate or just notice the extremities that are  used for the character designs and personalities sometimes, the references stand out because they were relevant at some point and sometimes will make you wonder how they got past censors, especially with how risky they can be sometimes, and finally the situations themselves will make you laugh as they are just jokes of the common superhero tropes and even everyday situations. This show always kept the humor fresh and enjoyable thanks to the crack team behind it.

 Now a great team is hard to find on an animated series, from what I understand. The thing  that really helped this and many like it such as Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain was that Stephen Spielberg was the Producer. This may seem like a silly thing but he gave the animators and writers free reign, which in turn allowed the creators of these stories to tap into their imagination for great situations and allowed for some awesome situations and comedy Warner Bros. was also behind these shows as well which allowed for some great animations and designs. I have nothing but praise for this show even if it doesn’t always hit the mark with it’s jokes 

This is a great series and well worth picking it up, hell I gave you a few good reasons right there. Who knows if enough people buy the DVD box sets or even watch the re runs maybe the executives will wise up and bring the show back with a more adult tone or even make a movie. There is always hope for that right.

Anyway this is 90’s Nerd reminding you to Freak-a-me and Freak-a-you

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!

well I’m sure if you have been paying attention Avengers has come out today, and yes I picked up my copy. It’s an amazing movie experience and you should totally watch it if you haven’t, Now this is the 90’s Nerd so your probably asking yourselves “what does this have to do with the nineties?’ watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLD1yq7eVoY.

Yes the Avengers were in the nineties too under the name Avengers: United They Stand, now I’ll be honest I was not a comic book fan while I was a child in the nineties, but I did watch this show and well let’s say that it didn’t hold up. A few of the things that really stand out in this series that were major differences compared to the regular Avengers team Ant-man is the leader, everyone armors up and the big three Ironman, Thor and Captain America aren’t on the team. To add injury to insult though the big three do actually show up at the end of the intro as if to say “yep we still exist.”

Anyway to be fair I did enjoy this series as a child, but when i grew up and started reading comics and watching superior marvel cartoons and movies you realize this is the one that may not hold up, due to animation that is okay at best, story being some what interesting but never great, and lastly the armor up thing was a little silly, but hey I love super heroes so who am I to argue about silly. Anyway I’m sure there were fans of the series and power to you people, honestly there were some cool things here.

Since I did mention that there are some cool things in the series I will step forward and list them in point form

1.The Team – This series may have not had the big three but it did have some awesome characters. The team consisted of Ant-man, Wasp, Tigra, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Falcon and Wonderman. For the people not comic savvy some of these guys are great in tech and hand to hand combat, search any of these characters up online if you are interested.

2. Cameos  – Now all the three did not make it into the series but Ironman and Captain America both had their own guest episodes helping the Avengers team with specific enemies respectfully.

3. The art – I may have hated the armor up thing but I will not deny the fact that the art was pretty cool and the designs were pretty solid. Sadly this can ‘t be said for the animation though.

Well I don’t remember everything for this series but I think I remembered enough to get this post up and I think I’ll enjoy myself later by watching the new Avengers movie which I recommend you buy if you are a super hero fan.

Avengers Assemble

p.s.

It was not said in the new movie and that still makes me said

REBOOT!

I hope you remember this gem from the nineties. Seriously I believe this was the first CGI (3D animated) show to ever be on television and it was made by a Canadian company. It followed the exploits of Bob a Guardian and his friends Dot Matrix and Enzo. They would constantly be saving a city called Mainframe from Megabyte and sometimes from his crazy sister Hexadecimal

One of the best ways the series would break things up is by throwing  down a game cube, that’s right Nintedo did not take the name first. The show took place inside of a computer and the main  characters were data, this then means the game cube represents a computer game and the goal of the main characters when in a game was to defeat the player, that’s right us. This is greatly looked into a few times in the series with fourth wall jokes and silly accusations about the computer related items as if it is every day norm for these characters.

The early seasons are very silly and are like an homage to eighties cartoons and then it works itself to a  become a serious television show with wacky jokes. It was one of those great shows that just grew up with its audience, making sure as they got older there was still a reason to be invested into the series. Hell I can still watch an episode of this today and still enjoy myself. This is proven because I recently did watch the entire series again, that children is what we call good writing and sometimes it is all you need

Speaking about writing the series loved to show it’s skill in this feel, especially with the  characters. They evolved and grew with every experience which made you genuinely care for them. This was even better portrayed when  Enzo took over as the Guardian for Mainframe. He was a kid at this time and this just showed a great coming of age story, a character put with responsibility and forced to grow up to serve his people.

Growing up was even addressed in the show as a few of the characters even grew older and love connections were even made to a point where you were cheering for the characters to get together in  the special way the show hinted. Hell even two of the characters were going to get married, until certain events changed things right before the “I dos” Is it just me or does that always happen. Anyway I don’t want to ruin too much for the people who plan to watch this classic again or want to watch it for the first time

I think we will end this blog with the proper thing to say to get ready for the game…. REBOOT!!!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

We all remember the theme song, hell you are probably singing the theme in your head since I mentioned it and for those that aren’t here you go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDQzALOH9iU. You either hate or love me right now, and I will revel in it either way because I love the TMNT. 

I grew up with these guys Leonardo the leader, Donatello the tech geek, Michelangelo the party guy, and Raphael the secret weapon. These guys could take on anyone and anything, ninjas, space travel, dimension hoping and even time travel. name it the turtles probably tried it once. This was one of the reasons you loved the turtles there was no end to what they were willing to do to fight for, and what they believed was right as was taught to them by their sensei and father Master Splinter. 

The TMNT is one of those things that will always be. It all started with a comic by Eastman and Laird, they wrote a story that got some great attention and with my opinion some pretty good art even today. The comic got enough attention for a toy line which then got a cartoon geared towards kids . This is where many people including myself were introduced to the characters and story of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The popularity of this series was so great it reached 193 episodes, this was impressive even for a show that started in the late eighties and worked its way to the early nineties. This was it the turtles were put on the top of fan lists and it’s still there today.

They are so popular that the cartoon spawned four movies, a live action show in the nineties, a new cartoon in 2003 and even a new comic series and a new TV series starting this fall. If you haven’t watched or read any of these I highly recommend  the the eighties or 2003 cartoon series and if you like what you see check out the comics and  even the movies, if you are willing.

With all this talk I know you people are probably wondering who my favorite turtle is, and like many nerds out there I choose Donatello. Donatello has the funniest lines they can be smart and somewhat stupid at the same time. Not to mention he still finds a way to get along with his brothers even though he seems like the black sheep in the bunch, especially since he isn’t pleased with the simple things like the others are. 

Raphael an Mike are a close second just because you never want one without the other, these guys are complete opposites. Raphael is serious and always looks for a fight, while Mike he just loves to party  eat junk food and relax. It’s amazing how well these two get along until they clash about something and they will be at each others throats in a second, but they will never kill each other. Obviously this  leaves Leonardo in last place.

Now even though Leo is last I still really do like him, especially in the later seasons of the 2003 cartoon when he has this cool scar on his shell, which I will not explain because I do not wish to give away any spoilers to people who want to watch it. I will however tell you what I do love about Leonardo though and it’s when he really gets into the fight its like a form of poetry. This guy thinks about nothing but the fight when he gets into it and while he’s fighting it all becomes about the skill and the efficiency combined to create an art form. Leo is the star pupil for good reason and this is well shown in the 2003 cartoon and in the comics.

Well this has been a long post but I do love my TMNT, and I think we can agree if you don’t that sad. We are entitled to our opinions though so I will not force anything on you, but for those who love the Teenage Mutant Turtles as much as me or maybe even more remember…

TURTLE POWER

 

The new kid

I’m sure we all remember being the new kid, and this is no different I am the new guy talking about his nostalgic things and hoping to have fun with it.

Now to be fair I am not planning to be an angry nerd, like so many out there these days. It really is getting old isn’t it. Anyway I hope you are willing to take some time and decide to read, instead of listen or watch.and hopefully you like what you read.

Now the name means one thing I grew up in the nineties, that does not mean all my topics will be about the nineties. This increases my nerd talks to a wider level and if you wish to hate me for it go right ahead I could care less.

Anyway let’s hit it off and have fun with this blog and as the saying goes “remember the good times”