I stumbled across this little gem on a comic site. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO OUR STAR WARS?
- Chewbacca looks like a dog. A shaggy dog. An ugly dog with eyes that are spread way too far apart. I’m not exactly sure what Chewbacca was supposed to represent in the films, if he was a bear/man hybrid or a dog/man hybrid or just a dude covered in hair, but he wasn’t supposed to look that much like a dog with huge hands. Oh, and his eyebrows are out of f-ing control and need to be slashed and burned.
- C3P0 looks, well, gay. A lot has been made of how the droids are gay for each other, mostly because of C3P0’s prissy fussing over R2-D2 and his whining when the two of them are separated. I didn’t believe this was the case for years. Droids? Gay? That’s illogical. Prissy? Sure. British? Sure. A tad effeminite? Sure. But gay? Nah, not those droids. But then I watched the movies again, all in a row, and holy shizzit, it leaps off the screen like Andy Dick riding a unicorn, a unicorn that’s wearing a pride shirt. This cover, showing the limp-wristed robot, just hammers another space nail in the space coffin.
- Han Solo doesn’t change his clothes. Ever.
- Luke is wearing…um…a cut-off shirt with buttons. With the collar popped. Nowadays an editor would stomp on that like Godzilla kills Tokyo, but in the 80’s I suspect that more people not involved with leather bars were wearing this and it slipped by. Oh, and his right thigh is twice as big as his left, making him some hobbling freak Jedi with hair that’s scarily like mine.
- What the hell is the one-legged insect thing on the right of the cover? Not in any Star Wars movie I’ve ever seen. Big cartoony eyes wouldn’t have gotten the thumbs up from Lucas, although when you see the cantina patrons in the Star Wars Christmas Special, you realize that a lot of lousy work was done on these films. Gone are the days of scary Darth Vader, the sadistic Emperor, and the intriguing Boba Fett. Say hello to…one-legged insect thing wearing khakis and striped shirt, with goose-neck microphone sticking out of his head and a bad toupee.
-Rabbits? RABBITS? Ha ha, there’s no need for space rabbits mixed into my Star Wars. They’re cute, but they don’t belong. Our heroes go from strangling Jabba the Hutt and slicing off their dad’s hands to herding fucking space rabbits? Why wasn’t this addressed in the prequels? Did everyone just forget about the adorable space rabbits?
-They streamlined R2-D2? Remember all those knobs and buttons on R2-D2? Well, they’re hard to draw, so sometimes artists just eliminate them and make R2 look like a giant white pill on stilts. Sometimes, they even do this on the cover.
- When did Lando Calrissian become the Cesar Romero of space? This is the one that had me scratching my head. What the hell happened, Billy Dee? What writer made you into a cigar-chomping guy in a cravat, airplane collar, and French cuffs that gets held by a wookie? Why are you wearing purple and green with black pants? Why is your hair blue? WHAT HAPPENED TO LANDO?
Luckily, this was the last issue. I can only imagine the horrors that would have followed if these mistakes were allowed to live.
Saw this today on my Facebook page, where the ads pop up.
Free watch if you’re interested in Tupac? How do these add up? And what is the goal of this study? To learn more about men who are interested in Tupac, or to just get rid of a bunch of hot watches?
Folks, I’m gonna level with you. I love Disney. I love the theme parks, I love the cartoons, I love the mythology, I love the fact that it wants to dominate all culture by the next century. I’m fine with that. Disney = teh good.
Now, if you go to the theme parks, you’ll see the characters, the folks dressed up in the large headed-costumes sweating in the Florida heat. They’re a major part of it, kids really get a thrill out of it and I enjoy knowing that they’re college interns who probably aren’t smiling under there. If you check out my facebook page, there are some pics of me posing with a few of them (Facebook me! OMG! Ethan Kaye!).
So you’ve got your Mickeys, your Minnies, your Donalds, your Goofys, and your Toy Story heroes. They’re all over the place (except for the first two times I went to the park, I was lucky to see one Smee). They’re the popular heroes and villains that have proved time and again to be major draws for the Disney corp. But what about the…others?
Yes, believe or not, not all the costumed characters have been successes. A movie flops and the expensive suit (they can run up to $6K an outfit) gets tossed into a closet. Or sometimes the nostalgia of the character is overestimated. Remember the Walrus from the “Walrus and the Carpenter” scene in Alice in Wonderland? He’s in the movie for less than 5 minutes. They made a costume of him. Approximately 95% of guests have no clue who he is, but they made a costume of him and he walks around signing autographs.
So, I present to you a multi-part examination of some of the “other” Disney costumed characters. Not your Mickeys, not your Minnies, but your bottom of the barrel Disney leftovers. Enjoy!
Stromboli Pinocchio
OK, Stromboli is generally not the first character who springs to mind when you think of “fun memories for kids about Pinocchio.” He’s the exploitative showman who forces Pinocchio to dance. Remember the “got no strings” song? It’s peppy, catchy, and about how Pinocchio is a slave to the forces of entertainment. If the Disney World Stromboli doesn’t have to face his inner demons every time he encounters kids, then the costume is only half done. Stromboli must be thinking about how he can exploit the tourist children at every opportunity! He should be drinking their beverages from their collectible mugs and molesting their moms! He’s not just a cuddly showman, he’s a larger-than-life machine! He’s Michael Douglas in Wall Street, he’s Al Pacino in Scarface, he’s Christopher Walken in King of New York. This guy’s got an angle, and he’s not afraid to kidnap a kid to make it happen. But hey, signing autographs is a steady side gig. Watch your cash around this one.
Mademoiselle Upanova Fantasia
I like Fantasia. It was great to make out to in high school, since you can’t lose any plot by looking away, it’s all audio. So this ostrich was the “lead” in the segment “Dance of the Hours.” She was identified in no way, shape, or form in the film as “Mademoiselle Upanova” (I just got the pun, ha ha), but take our word for it, that’s who she is. Wizard Magazine doesn’t lie about anthropomorphic ostriches. The interesting part is that Fantasia, although it is one of Disney’s greatest films, is not a huge hit with kids. Sure, it’ll keep their attention with the Sorcerer’s Apprentice part, but everything else is like watching a ballet, and kids don’t have that kind of patience. So getting them to remember the dancing ostrich…that’s assuming a lot. How many parents said, “Oh honey, get your picture next to the bird!” and “It’s like Big Bird!”? More than you think.
Hyacinth Hippo Fantasia
Another minor Fantasia character. It’s pretty obvious who got chosen and who didn’t: goofy animals = awesome, topless centaurs, demons on mountains, sorcerers, and dying dinosaurs = no costume for you. If I did drugs, I suspect I’d have bought the DVD by now, but as I don’t I still haven’t found a reason to purchase it. Hyacinth, sadly, does not bear the same mark of quality of most of the Disney World costumes. She doesn’t have that star quality of the Hyacinth of the cartoon and looks more or less like an off-the-shelf, run-of-the-mill pink hippo costume. Is it any wonder she doesn’t sign autographs?
Abby Mallard Chicken Little
Kids, why don’t you want to go back to Disney World? Oh right, that duck thing that scared you so much you peed on your shoes. This costume could have done with about 40% less eyes. In fact, if I hadn’t seen it was a duck, I would have assumed it was some sort of deep sea tubeworm with features. And DON’T tell me you don’t see that now when you look at it. Tubeworm with a face. I haven’t seen Chicken Little, but I can safely assume that Abby Mallard doesn’t go through the film being surprised by every little thing she comes across. I cannot safely say that she sleeps at all through the film, so a lack of sleep might be a cause of this.
Marie The Aristocats
So there’s a mother, a father, two kids, a grandmother, and a cat named Marie. They walk into a talent agency and the dad says to the agent, “We have an awesome act for you!” and the agent says, “Well, we don’t usually do family acts.” and the dad says, “Well, just wait ’till you see this!” And then he STOP. AWFUL THINGS HAPPEN. DISGUSTING THINGS HAPPEN. DO NOT IMAGINE THEM. THEY INVOLVE BODY FLUIDS AND THINGS THAT ARE ILLEGAL. TO FAMILY MEMBERS. Then the astonished agent wipes off his face and says, shakily, “What the hell…do you call…that…” and the dad proudly says, “THE ARISTOCATS!” Anyhoodles, Marie is the only character I’ve seen from the film The Aristocats out and about at the park. She is hopelessly alone in her wanderings, removed from context and transformed into a target for furries. She’s a woman in a slinky cat costume. You think she’s not giving the guy who dressed up as a sheep in his spare time a sweating fit? Bad idea all-around.
Believe it, the title is BIRTH CONTROL IS SINFUL IN THE CHRISTIAN MARRIAGES and also ROBBING GOD OF PRIESTHOOD CHILDREN!!” (note the two exclamation points in the title)
Have I read it? Nope. Never will either. It’s 648 pages, weighs close to 4 lbs, and it written by a completely crazy woman.How crazy? The title doesn’t say it all for you? Or even the subtitle, which is hard to read, “MANY FALSE CHRIST MARRIAGES ARE LIVING ON BIRTH CONTROL AND NOW LEADING THE AMERICAN CHURCH WEALTH!”? Well, her Amazon page contains some delightful gems from deep inside the crevasse which is her insane mind.
THIS IS A HOLYSPIRIT MANUSCRIPT BOOK: WHEN YOU BUY THIS BOOK YOU WILL BE READING A HOLYSPIRIT DIRECTED BOOK FROM GOD; & *CHRIST JESUS. THIS BOOK IS GODS HOLYSPIRIT VOICE: THE CALL FOR ALL CHRISTIANS & CHURCHES TO REPENT FROM ALL THEIR SINS: EVEN FROM FALSE CHRIST TEACHINGS. BIRTH CONTROL SINS HAVE CURSE THE CHURCH WITH SPIRITUAL WHOREDOM & FALSE WORSHIP.
Please note that the Holy Spirit [sic] and Christ Jesus think everything is important, so it must be in all caps. That, and a colon makes the perfect transition between one lost thought and another. I may revisit my declaration never to read this book, because it’s probably chock full of insane, but not in an easily copy and paste format that I can put on the internet. And no, it’s not on Kindle.
Eliyzabeth Yanne Strong-Anderson is a strong woman who feels the need to yell stuff, but she’s not without her critics.
BECAUSE OF COMPUTER DICTATORS: MANY WORDS IN THIS BOOK: MADE HAVE BEEN CHANGED: TO>>DISCREDIT: THE AUTHOR. BUT IN TRUTH: I AM A HOLYSPIRIT CHOSEN ANOINTED DISCIPLE FOR GOD & CHRIST JESUS. EVEN FOR JEWS, MUSLIMS & GENTILE SINNERS.
MS. ELIYZABETH YANNE STRONG-ANDERSON: ALSO PETITION FOR THE MAYOR SEAT IN TUCSON ARIZONA IN 1998. BECAUSE OF ORGANIZED CRIMES, POLICTICAL RACISM AND CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION AGAINST ELIYZABETH: HOLYSPIRIT EVANGELIST LIFE:
Lizzy, I can guarantee you that none of those things was the reason you didn’t get the mayoral seat. At least, I assume she didn’t, she doesn’t say anything else on the subject except that cryptic sentence.
You can get a good idea of her life story just by reading her ramblings on her Amazon page, the page that’s supposed to entice you to buy the book. She wanders off-topic occasionally, although it’s safe to say that selling her book is not the main goal of getting on Amazon.
GOD TOLD ME TO TEACH THE GOSPEL ON CABLE TELEVISION IN TUCSON ARIZONA. *CONCERNING THE SINS OF THE CHURCHES: & CONCERNING THE>LACK OF GIVING TO THE POOR & ORPHANS: CHRISTIAN CHURCHES SHOULD: BUILD MORE:> WATER WELLS: & BUILD LOW INCOME HOUSINGS: MATTHEW 25 & ISAIAH 61
But wait, there’s more! If writing 700-page books in broken English about not havin’ babies because they might become priests one day doesn’t keep the men charging away from your door (and the photo doesn’t either), Miss Crazy Cleo is also a black belt in karate!
MS. ELIYZABETH YANNE STRONG: ALSO HAS A 1ST DEGREE BLACK BELT IN TAEJUKENPO KARATE: SHE STARTED A KIDS & TEEN: KARATE MEMBERSHIP & TV CLUB: CALLED: KARATE PLAY: IN 1996-2000: SHE IS NOW: STARTING: RECREATION CITY KARATE CLASSES IN TUCSON ARIZONA: WITH GOALS TO OFFER PRIVATE MEMBERSHIP KARATE CLUB CLASSES.
Want more fun? “Taejukenpo karate” doesn’t exist. A google search turned up one (1) result which was…Eliyzabeth Yanne Strong-Anderson’s Amazon page. Same one where she’s selling the book. Either she’s making the karate thing up, or she went through enough karate training to become a black belt but neglected to ever notice how her discipline was spelled.
THIS IS WHY YOU DO NOT SELF-PUBLISH, PEOPLE.
Want another reason why this is insanity? She’s priced her book at $150.00.
Oh God, why have you made your biggest supporters complete and utter loons?
Everyone puts advertising down as being unnecessary, but gosh darn, there’s a lot of advertising that’s great. The Super Bowl always has funny ads year after year, and I like to think that I make ads that are important in selling medicines to doctors. I’m an ad writer by trade and I take my profession seriously. I like a good ad.
Especially when there are some ads that are TOTALLY INSANE but awesome. Case in point:
How TOTALLY INSANE but awesome is this Quiznos ad? Here’s a still image from it:
If I ate at Quiznos, I would be proud that my choice of hot sub deli had the stones to go out and take a risk with this. The song’s catchy, it gets you thinking about Quiznos, and if you’re really lucky, you’ll start hearing dogs tell you to kill people with a gun.
Toys are big business, and with so many toys being comic/movie/anime-themed, the New York Comic Con is rife with the things. For now, let’s just go with the plushies.
This Donald Duck toy is from an earlier, simpler time, when we didn’t worry about throwing a stuffed vinyl duck in with your sleeping toddler, and especially didn’t care much for junior’s mental health or scarring him for years to come. Even though he doesn’t have teeth, he can still manage to bite you in your nightmares.
Cat not convenient enough? Stuffed animal not angular enough? Have OCD but love whimsical toys? Square cat here is for you. It doesn’t move, it just smiles and sits on one of its 6 sides or 12 edges! Not cuddly, unless you have bone density problems.
Can’t say anything bad about squishy duck! He and I and William Katt are friends! (WARNING: William Katt has not, to my knowledge, met squishy duck)
Then there’s these…Christ, what are these things? My guess is something made during art therapy at an insane asylum.
These individualized teddys were being handed out to creators by a fan. Here we have Blue Beetle, Ambush Bug, Manhattan Guardian, and Green Lantern.
Here’s Magnus Robot Fighter, Booster Gold, a Blue Lantern, and Power Girl.
And here’s a Guardian, a Red Lantern, a Yellow Lantern, and a Green Lantern.
Finally, comics superstar Amanda Conner poses with her Power Girl teddy bear. Amanda was a big hit today, getting in around 11:30 and not having a chance to start on sketches until like 4PM! Busy! So busy!
On an unrelated note, here is the essence of Japanese culture, boiled down into an angry, bucktoothed cop and a happy bucktoothed monk. Japan: STOP IT. Clean up your act.
I guess this picture’s been circulating around the internets for a while, but it’s a pretty good shock to the system. God loved his people so much that he would cure their HIV, get them to stop dressing like women, stop them from being “wizards” and let them have children with a woman who God probably had a reason for giving no womb. For the last one, if the only purpose for the uterus is to carry a child, and God chose for her not to have a uterus, then having two children obviously goes against God’s plan.
Say nothing of the fact that the children probably gestated in the large intestine. I’d turn to a wizard for that kind of magic, not God.
There’s very little confirming evidence that this is real, however the Life Changing Ministry in London is very much in existence. Aside from hosting an ex-tranny/wizard, the head of the church is shown on the page looking very much like a pimp.
The man looks good. Respect the thread. I tried looking up Prophet Isaac on his previous event list, but the search engine keeps coming up with “There is no records to display.” This wording doesn’t surprise me, since the rest of the site, as well-designed as it is, is a grammar black hole.
Alas, Prophet Issac is still a mystery. And in this day and age, an ex-wizard/tranny/HIV+ prophet who has two kids from a barren wife who doesn’t have his own a webpage is really just a sin.
Welcome back to another exciting edition of Our Video Game History, the feature on this site that makes us take a hard look at the goods we spend our hard-earned money on back in the day. Those days were full of badly-thought-out game design and, no shock here, bad box art. People tend to forget that the packaging of a game is even more important than the game itself, because if you don’t want to pick the game up and put it in your cart at Silo or Crazy Eddie’s or whatever bankrupt electronics store from the 80’s, the game doesn’t get played.
Sadly, people forgot this rule.
AKA “Completely Stoned Mouthbreathers Find A Radio and Some Elephants.” You guys see the elephants? Guys? Guys? Oh, you’re just staring at your hand again. Good job, guys.
“The Carmen Sandiego convention was obviously not at the cemetery, like my contact had told me. I waited, patiently, looking for someone else dressed like the super spy, but no such luck. Fog came off the mountain, as I realized that someone didn’t know how to draw feet.”
Ideally, the “funcyclopedia” that comes with the game has some passing mention of WHERE THE HELL YOU ARE TO SEE ALL THESE ANIMALS. A koala on the same continent as a tiger? An elk and a chimpanzee living right next to each other? Really, spies and attacking tigers are the least of your worries at this point, fella. My first point of action would be PICK UP SPY PHONE, REPORT ZOO TO AUTHORITIES.
Back in the 1700’s, a woman would do a cross-stitch piece to show prospective husbands that they were skilled at wifely arts. This cross-stitch, sadly, would probably turn away all suiters (including that rake Mr. Darcy) and wind the poor lady up in the gutter, head full of fantasies of windmills, ogres, and Italian bakers, as well as lice. Are there no prisons for these box designers? Are there no workhouses?
I have no data to back this up, but I suspect this was the #1 Dragon Who Is Selling Magazine Subscriptions game of all time. You could choose if you were selling them for a school band, an after-school sports team, or just to earn yourself neat prizes like walkie talkies or a tent. The magazine you sell is Grit.
“No, sorry sir, Mr. Holmes is just a consulting detective. No, he won’t go out in the field with you, but he’ll take an office in your building and advise from there. He’s skilled at putting presentations together, he is. He’ll give suggestions, but no, no, he won’t be doing any of the actual labor. He just consults now, after the retirement. I’ll pencil you in for a capabilities discussion.”
Or burn to death, I guess. Or get eaten by a shark. You do have more options than just sink or swim.
Finally, a game that has absolutely no component on its cover that makes it interesting or attractive to purchase! A game that 100% fails! Way to go, Skaphander der Aufrag!
Wanted: Writer who knows how to make things plural.
Stopping by my friend Six Sider’s blog, Twang of the Void, I read about a bakery selling cookies for the inauguration of President Obama. It’s Max and Benny’s in Illinois, a Jewish deli with fairly odd ideas about what to sell for this historic occasion.
Obama? Sure, you’ve gotta have Obama. His mouth’s a little off, but we’ll let it slide. After all, what child’s going to say no to eating a man in a suit cookie? President Obama! Is food!
His wife-elect, Michelle, is looking pretty good, although the artist went a little overboard with the cheekbones. Someone probably said, “make sure she’s got CHEEKBONES. Big ol’ cheekbones. Then people will know who it is they’re eating,” and the artist figured that the cheekbones were what set her apart from other black women who have become cookies.
Joe Biden, sadly, could easily pass for John McCain, although his hair’s a little poofier. He might have been the back-up design, should Obama have lost. But he’s smiling, in a good mood, and apparently chewing extra-white gum.
Here’s where it starts getting odd. This is Obama with grey hair. You know, from that one time he had grey hair. Remember? You don’t? Maybe it’s Future Barack, sent to the past to warn his past self about something. Maybe it’s his mutant love child with Bill Clinton.
This is the floating head of Abe Lincoln that advised Obama through his difficult campaign. Only Obama and these bakers could see him. He’s got that look of a neighborhood toadie on his face, like he was saying something like, “Hit him again, Deke! Hit him again!” Also, one of our greatest presidents did not warrant the white teeth icing. See how far things have advanced since 1860?
Rod Blagojevich, or “Lil’ Blago” as he’s listed as on the site. Whereas Obama, the president-elect, gets only a head and shoulders and the man who freed the slaves gets a head with no teeth, this scummy politician gets an entire body. And cash!
And finally, Obama with a top hat that makes him look like Biggie Smalls. Obama isn’t known for wearing a top hat, and in fact most politicians stopped wearing them around FDR. He has it tipped at a jaunty angle though, which makes me think he’s trying for a “Mary Poppins”-esque chimney sweep thing. Or he’s starting a career singing soulful R&B ballads asserting that girl, he never gonna do you wrong.
