Previously....
The beautiful thing about the past, is that it's gone.
All you've got is memories, and you can tinker with how you look at those.
That's the real fucking time travel.
So, let's use some time travel to reclaim this pain-in-the-ass decade once and for all.
Looking back, it was the animation decade.
The music scene had gone to shit, and fashion was garbage, and there were a lot of godawful sitcoms and lame disaster movies to sift through, but the cartoons flourished better than any time I can think of.
FOX
Fox had (and still has) The Simpsons, plus....
....King Of The Hill...
...Futurama (squeaked by in 1999)...
...Family Guy (ditto)...
...The PJ's (ditto)....
...Batman:The Animated Series...
...Spider-Man...
...X-Men...
..Peter Pan & The Pirates...
...Tiny Toon Adventures...
...Animaniacs...
...Pinky And The Brain...
...Freakazoid...
...Eek The Cat...
..Extreme Ghostbusters...
...EXO Squad....
...Swamp Thing....
...Toxic Crusaders....
....and Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes.
Disney
Disney syndication had....
...The Disney Afternoon, which contained...
...Gargoyles.
Plus, they were on a huge lucky streak with their movies....
...and those are all getting live-action/CGI remakes in the 2010's.
...and speaking of CGI...
...Toy Story 1 & 2!!!
MTV
MTV of course had...
....Liquid Television, which spun off....
...Beavis And Butt-Head....
...which led to "Beavis And Butt-Head Do America", and spun off...
...Daria.
Liquid Television also spawned...
...The Head. Which was half of...
...Oddities, with...
...The Maxx.
They had other stuff like "The Brothers Grunt", but it sucked, so fuck it.
Comedy Central
...had a lot of cartoons over the past 2 decades, but in the 90's, they started out with just...
..Dr. Katz, and...
..South Park, which led to...
...South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut.
Nickelodeon
..had Nicktoons, the best of which were...
...Ren & Stimpy, and...
...Rocko's Modern Life.
You want me to look back fondly on Rugrats and Doug?
You're dreaming.
UPN/Syndicated/Misc
UPN had...
...Hulk, and...
...Dilbert.
There were other Marvel shows, but they stunk, and there were other adult shows, but they straddled the early 2000's.
Then, on USA, you had....
....Duckman.
And on ABC you had....
...The Critic.
Which was an un-acknowledged Simpsons spinoff.
Then, in syndication, you had...
...Beast Wars...
....Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles...
...and Pirates Of Dark Water.
Cartoon Network
Toonami, Adult Swim, and Aqua Teen didn't start 'til 2000, but there was still...
...Space Ghost Coast To Coast...
...Cartoon Planet...
...Johnny Bravo...
...Dexter's Laboratory...
...Courage The Cowardly Dog...
...and The Powerpuff Girls, which spawned...
...a movie in the early 00's.
Aardman Animations
...did "The Wrong Trousers", and "A Close Shave", in the Wallace & Gromit series.
*Gives Spencer the finger*
(He knows why)
Plymptoons
...were on Liquid TV, among a host of other places, and "The Tune", was the first Plymptoons movie. Basically, it was Plymptoons skits strung together with a loose plot, like the Bugs Bunny compilation movies.
Apparently, he's still out there doing stuff, they just don't play it on TV anymore. :-(
I gotta go dig this new stuff up, and check it out....
Don Bluth
Poor Don Bluth studios. :-(
A string of hits, and then by the 90's, they couldn't catch a break.
So, this bombed pretty hard.
I was working at Wal-Mart, and I put out an end cap of Anastasia junk.
Wrapping paper, stationary, party plates, anything made of paper, they had Anastasia on it.
No takers.
Not even dumb grandmas that don't know what kids like.
That shit was still up long after I'd left, into the 2000's.
That fuckhole is a Marden's now.
I like to go there to gloat inside that it's gone sometimes.
Anyway, Anastasia has an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Check it out.
Warners
The Iron Giant.
Now considered an animation masterpiece.
Maybe someday, Anastasia will get the love too.
We'll see.
And finally, the 90's was a golden age for...
ANIME
Sci-Fi Channel (before it was SyFy) had "Saturday Anime", which showed a meaty cross-section of stuff from the 70's, 80's, and 90's.
Of course, this got me into...
...TENCHI MUYO!!!!!
And that was a legit 90's anime.
Began and ended there.
What I think holds up, and is worth your time...the first 13 episodes of the original series, the middle "time and space adventures", episodes of the TV series, and the 3 movies.
Enjoy!!
Ghost In The Shell.
The live-action remake of this just bombed.
Good.
The animes stand alone, they don't need fucking with.
Cowboy Bebop
Didn't see this until it came to Toonami in the 00's but this was out there in the world to be had.
I was too wrapped up in Tenchi at the time.
Brilliant.
The peak of the artform.
It was all downhill from here.
Roujin Z.
About Japan inventing a robot hospital bed to care for the elderly, but it goes haywire, and runs amuck.
Hi-jinks ensue!!
The basis of the "Trapper Keeper", episode of South Park.
From the director of "Tokyo Godfathers".
Iria:Zeiram The Animation.
The anime prequel to the live-action sf-horror "Zeiram".
Both are worth a watch.
Where "Vampire Hunter D", is as close as you can get to a Castlevania anime, this is as close as you can get to a Metroid anime.
Girl in a power suit fights gore monsters.
What's not to love?
Trigun.
A human space colony rebuilds up to a wild-west level of tech and civilization, and a fella named Vash The Stampede has wacky adventures.
Hi-jinks ensue!
Toonami rotated this once, and never again.
A shame, this show is almost as good as Tenchi, it deserves way more love than it gets.
And finally...
Studio Ghibli
Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, Only Yesterday, & Pom Poko.
Beautiful films all.
(Correcting nerd voice) "But Mike!! Kiki was 1989!!!".
1. Close enough,
2. The alternative was "Porco Rosso", and I hate that one.
This is my positive nostalgia, muthafucka!
And that was 90's animation.
Pretty impressive when you pull it all together like that.
Next time, live-action.
4 comments:
"The past ain't through with us....it ain't even past" - William Faulkner
"The Simpsons": I draw 2000 as about the cutoff date for what I'll watch, so that dovetails quite nicely with your comment...
"The PJs": Oh man, I'd forgotten all about this. You'd think it would've been bigger, what with Eddie Murphy being in it and all!
Disney: Some of their 90s films stiffed at the box office..."Hercules" and "Pocahontas" were not hits and I know "Pocahontas" in particular was best remembered for Disney bending over backwards to be PC and that blowing up in their face anyway.
MTV: Just looking at the Liquid Television logo is hilarious now. Does that ever look quaint. Thanks for reminding me to binge B&B classic someday, I'm really only familiar with the movie and like two episodes.
SP: Bigger Longer & Uncut is so clearly a product of a different mindset than what SP is now that it's jarring.
"You want me to look back fondly on Rugrats & Doug? You're dreaming." - I'm only familiar with the latter but wasn't "Rugrats" actually like really acclaimed or something? Am I remembering that right?
"Duckman": That shit got pretty raunchy sometimes. Would be worth a rewatch.
"Aqua Teen didn't start until 2000"...and if only it had been over with by 2005!
"Anastasia": Very funny anecdote there about Wal-Mart junk, and especially that Wal-Mart somehow lost to "Marden's" (whoever THAT is!) I remember that poster--doesn't her facial expression look dumb?
"Ghost In The Shell": I'm not familiar with the anime (only its name), but the response to the recent movie was a "Last Airbender"-level shitstorm, wasn't it? One of the reviews someone pointed out to me said that the movie "basically asks you to care about nothing for two hours." AHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! Not to mention the usual race controversy.
"Roujin Z" - Oh man, I remember the concept for this, because it was reviewed in "DieHard GameFan" once, and the review began: "Old people. They smell, wouldn't you rather someone else took care of them while you go watch WWF"?"
Disney- Yeah, Hunchback, Hercules, and Pocahontas were on the waning end of it, but the stuff after that ate it harder, so...what the hell, I chucked 'em in.
"Rescuers Down Under", didn't do well, but its being re-discovered as a lost classic.
Nick- I don't hate Rugrats, I was just too old for it, so it's not my jam. And yes, it was acclaimed. I hated Doug though. Everyone hated Doug.
Anastasia/Wal-Mart/Marden's- Marden's is this local cheap junk store that's even skeezier than Wal-Mart. That Wal-Mart didn't "fail", so much as they just built a Super Wal-Mart up the street, and Marden's crawled into the husk of the old one like a hermit crab.
You must have a hermit crab store in your neck of the woods.
Ghost In The Shell- Yes, "Last Airbender", is about right.
Roujin Z- It's tough to mock, because the movie totally already goes there in R rated detail in regards to what's involved with caring for the elderly, and people's reaction to that.
Oh, and...
Ghost In The Shell again- It's about a chick (The Major) who's a human brain in a robot body made to look like her old body. This gives her Terminator strength, and perfect reflexes and aim. Plus, she can mentally link to the internet, and do all kinds of fun stuff with that. The main thrust of the old movie, is her and her black ops unit are after a hacker called The Puppetmaster who's been taking over people's cybernetic bodies, and making them commit crimes. Spoiler, it's not a hacker, but a sentient virus made by the government that broke loose.
Very timely, what with the recent cyber attacks from a re-purposed NSA program.
We're in the future.
Anyway, the live-action remake added some bullshit about Major's human backstory that we didn't want or need.
The old movie was better, because it tantalized you with little visual hints that her memories were fucked with, and she lost something, but they don't delve into it. They just leave it as this sad somber rumination lingering in the air. That made it spookier.
Her getting her memories back for a happy ending is total Hollywood.
It's why these anime adaptations shouldn't be attempted, mainstream Americans cant deal with with foreign culture stuff.
I don't know how well remembered this is, but the 1996 "Hunchback Of Notre Dame" actually got fucking GLOWING reviews when it came out. Disney was praised for dumping Political Correctness and trying to be dark...I remember the movie as actually being pretty good myself, but I've never gone back to it.
Hermit crab stores - Hmmmm, sort of. I should have known better than to assume that Wal-Mart actually got *beaten* up there in Maine--or ANYWHERE--and should have assumed the Hermit Crab scenario to begin with!!! After all, what you just described happened here, too ("Super Wal-Mart" up the street.) We ended up with Hastings Entertainment Superstore in the old Wal-Mart location, but it died last year due to being pathetically mismanaged. FRIGGG. They had lots of stuff really! But Hermit crab stores are only sort of the truth....there's plenty of other stores that have eaten it in Wal-Mart's wake.
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