SMCS Companion Piece #8: Camp Candy

I like John Candy, I really do. He was a funny guy who made a ton of great films (Canadian Bacon being my favorite of his) and died too soon. It’s safe to say that I am a fan. I don’t think he was a comedic genius or anything but I enjoyed most of the work I saw him do. That said who the hell thought he should have his own cartoon? I’m not saying he had no business having one but how did executives come to the conclusion that Candy needed a kids show? “You know who’d make a great cartoon character? That dog-guy from Space Balls.” Again I’m not saying that it doesn’t work. Sitcoms based on material of comedians get made all the time so there’s no reason for it to be limited to primetime. But here’s an interesting question: where does the line get drawn when making shows based on celebrities? For every logical cartoon made (While he may be technically worthless as a comedian Louie Anderson’s cartoon certainly makes sense considering the material he uses in his stand-up) we get some crazy self-indulging venture featuring a celebrity fighting terrorists or space aliens. Is this justified entertainment? Or is just another example of amoral opportunists making money off of American celebrity worship?

Celebrity Worship: 1, Justified Entertainment: 0

This week on the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show we saw Camp Candy. Let’s take a look of similar cartoons featuring celebrities.

Beta VERSUS Celebrity Cartoons

Johnny Actor is very popular, even if it’s just a craze that will only last a few years. Even if Johnny wasn’t marketed for children kids seem to love him nonetheless. Therefore if we make a cartoon about him than logically the little twits will flock to it, right? Maybe I’m not being fair. Plenty of shows were developed by actors/comedians/whatever who earnestly wanted to produce children’s television. But this is not every show. Basically it depends on how much said celebrity has to do with the production (Whether s/he’s voicing his/hers cartoon counterpart or just letting them use his /hers likeliness), whether or not the show has a fantastical and unlike scenario (If the celebrity fights crime/evil), and the overall quality of the cartoon. A good show would probably be a Slice of Life cartoon about growing up in non-ideal situations but making the best of it and ultimately triumphing. A bad show almost certainly involves a celebrity and his elite team battling the forces of evil (I’m looking at you Sgt. Slaughter).

Let’s look at some of these shows and judge them on these criteria and see whether they pass or fail. Take in mind that this is strictly for shows that are based on some celebrity whether they be actor musician or athlete. A cartoon based on a movie is a different type of cartoon altogether even if a character looks exactly like the actor that played the original. Also a show that happens to feature the vocal talents of a popular celebrity shouldn’t count unless an aspect of the show was based on him or her of his or hers material. Let’s start with the show that sparked this essay to begin with:

Camp Candy

Due to his inherent "Santa Factor" John Candy is an ideal candidate for child care

Premise: John Candy runs a summer camp for kids but unfortunately Candy is about as competent here as he is in all of his movies. Hilarity ensues.

Celebrity Involvement? Candy voices his avatar in the show, sings the theme song, and appeared in live-action segment that were placed in the show after its initial run. It seems that he did his best to be a part of the production as much as possible, despite that at time his acting seems forced and insincere probably due to the fact that he’s not primarily a voice actor.

Farfetched? It’s a pretty wacky cartoon, and it never forgets it’s a cartoon for sure, but even so it’s still pretty mundane. Although if Candy had started a summer camp in real I hope he wouldn’t cheap-out but on the equipment and living conditions as much as he apparently does in the cartoon.

Beta Says: This cartoon wasn’t Shakespeare, but it wasn’t offensive either and that is a victory in itself.

Grade: Pass

Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos

Roundhouse kicking your enemies is half the battle!

Premise: “Man of Action” Chuck Norris takes time off from making B-Action Movies to form a government team of specialists to fight the evil forces of The Claw and the Super Ninja.

Celebrity Involvement? Sure enough Norris voices himself and also taught the audiences moral an lessons at the end of the episode in live-action segment but, like everything else he does, he is completely devoid of actual acting ability.

Farfetched? That the government would leave the defense of our nation in the hands of an actor and his sumo wrestler friend is pretty insane. Maybe, maybe, if Norris wasn’t playing himself it would be fine but as it is I can’t buy it.

Beta Says: Despite the fact that Chuck Norris is involved with the show proper he leads still a GI Joe-like team against a Cobra-like villain and that just makes my eye twitch. Add to the fact that this cartoon was insanely terrible means the result is obvious.

Grade: Fail

Hammerman

Premise: MC Hammer Brokey McNo-Money Stanley Burrel is given magical talking shoes (?!) that transforms him into the super hero Hammerman, because why the hell not?

Celebrity Involvement? MC Hammer voices Stanly/Hammerman according to IMDB and also does the terrible terrible theme song which has some of the worst raping-exposition lyrics in cartoon history.

Farfetched? I don’t believe MC Hammer could manage a savings account correctly let alone fight crime. If he really had super powers then why couldn’t he save his music career?

Beta Says: This cartoon was so bad that I repeatedly pondered putting my head in an oven in order to make sure I never had to watch it again. I was seven years old! Anyway this cartoon is nothing more than a limb of bigger money making monster wherein MC Hammer proved to White America™ that Hip Hop wasn’t completely all about political change, racial awareness, and shooting cops and could be “safe” for them as well. See also: Vanilla Ice.

Grade: Fail

Bobby’s World

Behold the face of madness

Premise: 4-Year Old Bobby Generic lives a fairly normal life save for his amazingly vivid imagination. He has adventures both in mundane reality and in his own twisted mind.

Celebrity Involvement? The entire concept of the character was completely ripped from comedian/servant of the damned Howie Mandel. He voice both Bobby and also Bobby’s father Howard, who is clearly Howie Mandel as a cartoon character. More importantly Mandel is credited as the creator of the show which probably means that he was the man pulling the strings in the cartoon’s production. If you liked this show he’s the reason why…God help us all.

Farfetched? Despite the fact that Bobby tends to dream up all sorts of crazy crap about every five minutes or so it’s all in his little kid head and the world he actually lives in is about as Slice of Life as you get. It does seem be bit unrealistic that Mandel was able marry any real human being and have a family considering he’s suffers from a fear of germs (And is also really greasy looking) but sure enough in real life he’s married and has several kids so there you go.

Beta Says: This show is very similar to Rugrats, except that Bobby is a little older than the toddlers from that show and also might be insane, but this show actually predates the Nickelodeon cartoon by about a year. Anyway as a kid I didn’t care for this cartoon but as an adult I’ve come to decide that it’s pretty decent at the least. It has one of the best theme songs in cartoons, that’s for sure.

Grade: Pass

Also voiced by Frank Welker

Jackie Chan Adventures

Premise: An archeologist who is clearly not Jackie Chan named Jackie Chan, who is also a part-time secret agent, battles the forces of evil as he collects a variety of ancient artifacts of power (Depending on the season) in order to keep them out of the hands of evil. He is sometimes aided by a group of specialists known as the “J-Team”.

Celebrity Involvement? Jackie Chan did do some live-action scenes where he answered supposed fan made questions but that is apparently the extent of his involvement with the show. Not only did Chan not voice the title character the Animated Jackie doesn’t really resemble him that much. Add to the fact that the actual actor playing the role, James Sie, isn’t doing a great job of mimicking Chan’s voice I might actually assume that this is not a cartoon based on Jackie Chan but rather an amazing coincidence.

Farfetched? Well if “Animated Jackie Chan” just happens to share a name with the “Live-Action Jackie Chan” than I would just assume this is another ill-conceived action cartoon. Otherwise I am uncomfortable with the idea of Jackie Chan, actor/stuntman/gymnast, involved in an American Government endorsed power struggle against an army of demons.

Beta Says: This cartoon could probably being changed to Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos 2000 as the two shows are practically identical on paper except that Chan is more popular in 2000 than Norris was in 1986 so the newer series lasted much longer (Five seasons). Even with the dumb premise and Chan clearly just using it to cash a check I would probably be neutral on the show if it wasn’t for Jade, the most annoying action cartoon sidekick in history. Something of a Mary Sue insert Jade actually makes me think Scrappy-Doo was just misunderstood. If possible let’s all destroy all footage of this show so we can banish this wretched character from pop culture forever.

Grade: Fail Fail A Thousand Times Fail

Life with Louie

Premise: A young Louie Anderson deals with the pressures of growing up in a large middle class family in Wisconsin. Um…that’s it.

Celebrity Involvement? Like with Bobby’s World Life with Louie is based on the stand-up of the star of the show, in this case Louie Anderson. Anderson also provided the voice of his eight-year old counterpart as well as his insane, but genuinely good-hearted, father Andy. Also he voiced the narrator who, seemed to be Anderson himself as an adult looking back on his childhood, and is credited as a co-creator of the show meaning he, like Mandel on his show, was likely heavily involved in many aspects of the cartoon’s production.

Farfetched? Uh…no. This was Slice of Life at its best. It’s just a normal everyday (If hideously ugly) eight-year old who’s trying to find his place in the world, one mundane adventure at a time. Bullies, chores, problems with his father, etc, stuff that you or I had to deal with ourselves. Frankly this show was about everyday life for a kid.

Beta Says: Though it pains me to give Louie Anderson any credit at all I have to say that this may be the best example of a celebrity cartoon done right. This was clearly a show he wanted to do, stories he wanted to tell, and he made sure that he had as many fingers in as many pies on the show as he could. Then he ate the pies.

Pictured: Louie Anderson on the Set of Family Feud

Grade: Pass (Alright!)

So I think based on that we can see that if there’s a comedian involved it’s not going to be as bad. This was pretty fun; we’ll have to do another one of these later since there are a lot of other cartoons like these out there.

For the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show Podcast visit the SMCS Blog or the WIDR web page.

SMCS Companion Piece #7: Avengers Week Day Three

Sorry. This should have been up earlier, but I was and still am but of town vising family. I was busy.

As we continue with Avengers Week we now have to come across the team’s underwhelming show at animation. This week on the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show we watched The Avengers: United They Stand. Before we can talk about why this show sucked we have to look back to why it was made in the first place.

Beta on Avengers: United They Stand

It all started, as with all good things, with Batman. Specifically I’m referring to Batman: The Animated Series, the groundbreaking 1992 cartoon. After the success of Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns, along with other factors that destroyed the notion that comic book characters were all campy affairs, Warner Bros. green lighted an animated series based on the character. While not based on the films it was thematically similar. Obviously as we now count the show as one of the best (If not the best) cartoons ever made so I’d say that it did very well.

Now that Batman had opened the door Marvel and DC began making plans to make more cartoons based on their characters. DC sort of took its time over the next ten years or so but Marvel began releasing a string of properties in animated form. First was X-Men: The Animated Series which was their answer to the Batman cartoon. Darker than anything Marvel had animated previously the cartoon became extremely popular despite noticeable dips in quality throughout the series. Soon afterwards Spider-Man: The Animated Series came out and similarly was very successful, despite it being a terrible cartoon (That is another blog, for sure). With X-Men and Spider-Man getting great numbers more Marvel properties were animated including The Fantastic Four, Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk but none of them came close to the success of the first two.

"So, did you read the original comic?" "Meh, I glanced it"

Eventually it was decided to try making an Avengers cartoon. Now these days the Avengers are easily Marvels premier superhero team but in the 90s they were a bit below the radar of the Average Joe. In fact I do believe there had never been a straight Avengers cartoon before this so it would be the first chance many young cartoon fans would have to see Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. X-Men and Spider-Man had proven that the time was ripe for successful comic-based cartoons and surely both comic series benefitted greatly from the exposure. Avengers seed like a no-brainer. It did not go well.

Premiering in 1999 on Fox Kids Avengers: United They Stand lasted a mere 13 episodes before being canceled and promptly forgotten about. But why? Ratings, most likely. According to the rumor mill Fox hated the idea of having their highest rated series (Spider-Man and X-Men) be shows not done in-house and would have liked nothing more than to get rid of them, but couldn’t justify canceling such successful properties. If true it’s likely that after the Avengers didn’t gain the expected ratings Fox gleefully pulled the plug as fast as they could. Even if that’s true they show still kind of sucked and at least need some retooling.

What was wrong with it? Well I think there’s three main problems with it. The first one is a comic book nerd complaint but I was unhappy with the roster. It featured Ant-Man, the Wasp, the Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, the Vision, Falcon (Presumably because he’s black), Tigra and Wolverine a Wolverine-like Hawkeye. Now people like Hawkeye and the Scarlet Witch are fine, of course, as they’re mainstays of the team, but what were b and c-listers like Tigra and Falcon doing there? More importantly where were Captain America Iron Man, and Thor? Those are the “Big Three” of the team! As most of the Marvel cartoons existed in a shared universe it would have made sense for Iron Man from the earlier 90s cartoon to be on the team and bring fans of that show (Justice League did this not too long afterwards and everyone was better off by it). There was never a stated reason but some believe that the rights to use these characters were tied up due to forthcoming (Though ultimately never produced) films. Okay, I might buy that for two of them but not all three. Again, maybe it’s just my nerdy brain getting upset over nothing.

A bigger, non-dork complaint I have is with the show’s gimmick. Apparently someone during the production of the show decided that a cartoon about the Avengers was not strong enough by itself. Kids today (In 1999) would be uninterested in a hokey/boring show about super powered beings battling other super powered beings for the fate of the world. To spice things up it was decided that several of the characters, in addition to whatever superpowers or skills they already possessed, would wield high tech super armor that were summoned in similar fashion as “Morphin Time” from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. That’s right: Ant-Man, boring as he was already, now came with a transformation sequence as he “armored up”. This, mind you, was never in the comic; it’s something they added to the cartoon in the post-Power Rangers era of children’s television. Interestingly there were other shows that also had this type of sequence that had been popping up over the then-past few years (Including a show called Mummies Alive) and almost all of them were canceled after one season. I can see a pattern forming…

Big Bad Beetleborgs...ASSEMBLE!

Anyway the last problem I had with the show is basically how the show started. The premise of this show involved the Avengers having apparently been around for years prior to this (Founded by characters who aren’t even on the team anymore) and have had already been established in the world. Tons of back-story we never got to experience. The show would have benefitted from having an “Avenger Origin Tale” as its first episode rather than the “Just another day in the life of the Avengers” thing we saw this past weekend (You’ve heard the podcast, right?). Let’s compare to the far more successful X-Men and Justice League cartoons.

The first episode of X-Men: The Animated Series was a great two-part story. The young mutant Jubilee, acting as our point-of-view character, finding her normal life shattered by mutant hunting robots called Sentinels but is rescued by an unknown group of unknown mutants calling themselves the “X-Men” who are forced to prematurely reveal their existence to a hateful world in order to save the girl. As Jubilee is initiated into their world we are as well. Even though they existed as a group prior to the first episode it’s clear that what we are seeing is their debut in what seems like their most important adventure to date.

Gambit shamelessly hits on 14-year old girls

And yet his cartoon is still superior to this crap

Justice League starts out with Batman and Superman from their previous 90s shows on investigating what appears to be sabotage of defense satellites but turns out to be the beginning of a global alien invasion. After being unsuccessful in defeating the threat on their own they re summoned by a different alien, the Martian Manhunter, who has been captured by the enemy. At the same time he also summoned a small group of heroes and the group work together to save the Earth. Superman suggests they continue working together afterwards. It’s cliché, but like the X-Men you feel like this cartoon is for you and you haven’t missed anything because it’s literally a blank slate.

The Avengers first episode feels like it’s just another adventure, the only difference is that Wonder Man is put in a coma. It just doesn’t grab you as much.

Anyway truth be told the cartoon wasn’t the worst. It was more juvenile than Batman: The Animated Series and more dull than the early and excellent X-Men: The Animated Series episodes, but there have been a lot worse affairs for sure. But as it stands I doubt anyone shed a tear when this show got canned.

THIS JUST IN: I have just heard that a new Avenger cartoon is set to premier on XD Disney this fall called Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and it will apparently feature Thor in some capacity! Now that we live in a post-Justice League world I’m super excited to see how this show goes. Like it or hat eit you can be sure I’ll talk about it when it drops.

Now that's more like it!

For a less biased description of Avengers: United They Stand click here
For the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show blog click here

Avengers Week: Day One

So yeah. You may have noticed a lack of Saturday Moring Cartoon Show companion blog this past weekend; no “Beta Rage” filled rant against Cartoon Planet. I was going to write one, sure, but in the end I decided to skip one this week for three reasons. #1) I was burnt-out on writing blogs after the inhumanly long Anime for Beginners fiasco (Though what little feedback I ever get was very positive about it) and I couldn’t bring myself to write anything else. And yes I know that I wrote that one on my own and it had nothing really to do with anything. Burnt-out is burnt-out, regardless as to who caused it. #2) Ever since I started this blog I’ve proven to myself that I can write a ton of stuff regularly and have it be entertaining (At least I’m told its entertaining) so I’ve been working a little harder on my novel. Yes I’m working on a novel, shut up. And yes I was working on it before I started this dumb blog. And no, nothing I write in this blog has anything to do with the book I’m working on. Long story short I dedicated more time to the book than the blog this week. Sue me. #3) I have nothing really to say about the cartoon we watched on the show that day. Cartoon Planet is not my favorite cartoon but it’s not bad enough to stay on my mind. I pretty much said everything I wanted to say about it on the podcast, so if you’re that desperate for my opinion on the matter go here and check it out or go to widr.org and search for it.

Anyway this coming weekend we’re finally doing a cartoon I’ve wanted to talk about ever since DJ Muppet informed me it was an option: Avengers: United They Stand, a terrible Marvel cartoon that absolutely failed in drawing the numbers the 90s’ X-Men: The Animated Series and Spider-Ma: The Animated Series cartoons did. Now I will have a blog about this show this weekend but because I am in my heart more of a comic book nerd than anything else I felt I needed to talk a bit about the source material before I could really explain why the cartoon was a pile of poop. Therefore I declare this week…

Avengers Week

Day One

Four of Earth's greatest heroes (And some loser) fighting Loki

Okay so where to begin? I’m sure you’ve heard of the Avengers. Published by Marvel Comics starting in 1963 it has endured to present day. Multiple spin-offs have been created over the years and even today Marvel plans on releasing at least three new Avengers titles later this year. It is a superhero team book where a band of, supposedly, “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” battle threats that no one of them could fight alone. It also has a rotating cast that so often filled with lame second stringers and supposed A-List guys who are actually still pretty lame. Let’s take a brief (God I hope it’s brief) look back at the origins of this book.

Like I mentioned it was stated in 1963. The book was created by 1960s power duo Stan Lee and Jack Kirby who also created the significantly more popular at the time Fantastic Four a few years earlier. In fact let’s look at that comic first. At the beginning of the so-called Siler Age of Comics a golf game between the editors of Marvel and rival DC Comics, as the legend goes, had a conversation about DC’s popular new book Justice League of America and how well it was doing against an Marvel book. Martin Goodman (Marvel’s editor), angry by the fact that DC was beating his company, went to his go-to guy Stan and demanded he make Marvel’s version of the JLA. Uninterested in doing anything like that Stan and Jack instead created a unique superhero team that was made of a family of sorts that bickered and yelled but always worked it out just in time to defeat the bad guys. That comic was of course the Avengers the Fantastic Four and it brought Marvel into the then-modern age. Very unique for its time it showed that Lee could think outside the box when it came to competing with DC (Jack “The King” Kirby always thought outside the box). He didn’t need to blatantly rip off DC to sell books.

So of course a few years later Lee got lazy and made a JLA clone anyway. Go figure. (Also he may have ripped off of DC on other books but that’s another topic, I’m sure).

Earth’s Mightiest Heroes

And Two Other Guys

Like JLA the Avengers was supposed to feature the most powerful and popular characters in the Marvel Universe and put them all together in one book. JLA had guys like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, etc.; their entire roster of top guns in their book. So obviously you’d think that Lee would use Marvel’s top guys as well. The Incredible Hulk was one of the founding characters, which made more sense at the time because a) he was hugely popular in the 60s and b) he wasn’t nearly as destructive and child-like back then as he has been portrayed for most of his existence. Next the Mighty Thor, arguably the most powerful superhero Marvel had to offer and the only character at Marvel, at the time, comparable to the somewhat over-powerful DC heroes. Next was Iron Man, which makes some senses, I guess. At the time Iron Man was still pretty new and I’m not certain the creators had quite found his voice yet, but they needed bodies so why not? And of course Marvel’s most popular hero Spider-Man was included-

What’s that? Marvel’s most popular hero wasn’t in fact included on the team? How can that be?

It’s true! Despite basically printing money for Marvel at the time they decided not to include the Amazing Spider-Man in the Avengers book. When asked about this many times over the years Stan Lee’s usual response is “Spider-Man was an obvious loner and therefore wouldn’t fit in.” Wait, back-up: Friendly bookworm turned guilt ridden superhero Peter Parker was too much of a loner, but somehow the steroid raging Hulk was more of a team player? The same guy who literally spends the majority of the early issues being mistaken for a rampaging monster that his teammates repeatedly have to put down? But Spider-Man is too much of a “loose-cannon”? Sure Stan, sure. Spidey wouldn’t officially join the cast of the book as a full member until forty years later.

One of these guys is too unpredictable /uncontrollable to be an Avenger

The other one is the Hulk

Anyway, so we got Thor (Awesome), Iron Man (Okay, I guess) and the Hulk (Sure, why not?) but who else should we have on the team. Why Ant-Man of course! Ant-Man whose powers include shrinking and the ability to command…ants! Ant-Man who is like Aquaman without the super strength, combat training or being neigh-unstoppable while under water! Ant-Man who is supposed to be a brilliant scientist…except that Iron Man is, um, more brilliant. Huh. Why are you here again, Ant-Man?

And last but not least the Wasp! Wait the Wasp? The Wasp can shrink size too except she can also fly and shoot energy blasts? What the hell did Ant-Man bring to the table besides a goofy helmet and goofier name when his girlfriend can do similar and cooler crap than he could? How in the world did Ant Man warrant being among Earth’s Mightiest Heroes over Spider-Man? Sure the Webhead might be an obvious loner, too dangerous to be trusted (Or so Stan Lee seemed to think) but at least he can actually do something…anything.

Ant-Man/Hank Pym: The "Ross Geller" of the Avengers

To be fair there are probably a number of reasons that Stan felt Spider-Man couldn’t be on the team; I just wish I had a better explanation for it. So if anyone has one please send it my way.

Anyway the final team roster in issue #1 featured Thor, Hulk, Iron and the Incredible Shrinking Twins. Justice League they were not folks, yet they apparently were Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (I’m surprised Earth made it out of the Siler Age). By issue #2 though the roster was shaken up due to the Hulk leaving the team because he remembered that he was actually an “obvious loner” and Ant Man, realizing that he was the worst superhero of all time, decided to grow instead of shrink and became the less useless Giant-Man (More on him later). Since then it’s become something of an unfunny running gag a staple of the Avengers to have a somewhat rotating cast meaning that just about any superheroes ever has been a member of the team…including dangerous criminals, terrorists and KGB agents who promised they were reformed/were sleeping with someone already on the team.

Within the next two days I’ll tell some of my “favorite” Avengers.