Tagged: Cartoons
G.I. JOE Action Stars Cereal Transformed You Into a Bonafide 80s Badass!
‘G.I. Joe Action Stars’ cereal was quite a way to start your day off in 1985! Yes, if you ever dreamed of being like Duke, Sgt. Slaughter or heck even Rambo all you apparently had to do back then was grab a box of this likely highly unhealthy but flashy sugary meal to pump you UP from your local grocery store. I mean c’mon look at this damn box-it’s the food of true action heroes……obviously!
I’m not gonna lie, I want to order that G.I. Joe tee from the back of the damn box! And even better, it appears once you’re done stuffing your face with the yummy action star shaped “Cheerios” you can actually transform the cereal box into some sort of Cobra radio relay station?!! Break out the action figures ASAP!
Talk about getting your money’s worth! Also the commercial for this wicked cereal is the ultimate selling point, putting any kid who eats it on rip roarin’ adventure with the Joe’s!! Sign me up!
Interesting fun factoid, the character featured here named “Starbuster” only appeared in cartoon form in this one and only epic commercial!
That Time The HULK Fought The HUNCHBACK of Notre Dame?!
I was rewatching some of my favorite eighties cartoon episodes straight from my childhood recently & was reminded why The Incredible Hulk series from that era remains one of my faves! It used to be paired with ‘Spider-man and His Amazing Friends’ during the Marvel “power hour” on Saturday mornings!
I’ve stated here a few years ago that as much as I liked The Incredible Hulk animated series of the early eighties there just wasn’t enough appearances from the jade giants rogue’s gallery. As far a real villains, he only really went head on with The Leader, Doctor Octopus oddly and the Puppetmaster. As a kid I’d always hoped to see The Abomination, The Rhino, The Bi-Beast or M.O.D.O.K. pop up to cause The Hulk some trouble. Instead in a strange twist we got an epic battle between the green goliath and of all people, The Hunchback of Notre Dame(?!) in an episode from 1982 called ‘When Monsters Meet’.
Yep, Quasimodo for some reason showed up not only in the animated series but also in a special one shot issue from 1983 the that I still personally adore to the this day! And at a mere 60 cents you just CAN’T complain right?!
What’s so perplexing is I could never quite figure out just why the hell they chose to pit the Hulk against him in the first place? I mean surely there were better villains to feature in an animated series! But still…
…And really who would’ve thought that Quasimodo actually had the super human strength to go one-on-one with The Incredible Hulk in the first place?! I’m impressed! They actually managed to make him into a pretty frightening and formidable foe. Go Quasi!
I’m guessing that this particular one shot issue, which featured actually a pretty sweet savage battle, was created in some sort of way to generate more excitement around the animated TV series? Either that or someone was just a real BIG fan of The Fighting Irish and just simply couldn’t resist making Quasimodo into a bonafide Incredible Hulk bad-ass villain. I think the results worked shockingly well, don’t you?
Whatever the case I just had a an 80s flashback of owning this weirdo one shot comic book beautifully illustrated by Sal Buscema and seeing this particular episode for the first time. Believe me, though an ODD choice of a story and semi stupid villain, it made me long for those Saturday mornings and sugary cereals of sooo many years past…
Justice League Dark: More Forgettable R-Rated Animation from DC?
So it seems that DC is really giving the whole R-Rated comic book cartoon thing a shot these days and after seeing how The Killing Joke turned out I’m really pretty skeptical. The Killing Joke movie should have been amazing, it really didn’t need to be a full feature film either. It could have worked as 45 minute short flick. It really tried way to hard to flesh out Barbara Gordon with a flimsy story that had little to do with the plot of the comic and an unnecessary “racy” sex scene with Batman (to give it that edge it thought it needed for some reason). Pair that with some pretty flat animation and what you’ve got is a totally forgettable cartoon adaptation to steer clear of.
Well now we’ve got another attempt from DC to get gritty with the animated Justice League Dark. Normally I’d be super pumped on the idea but after that Killing Joke cartoon I’m wondering if the R-rated cartoon is something DC really is really excelling at? There’ve been some attempts from Marvel to make more adult friendly adaptations over the years that were honestly pretty forgettable as well, so I’m not just faulting DC.
An animated Justice League Dark film should by all means be something to be truly excited about. I think the people behind these animated features should be putting some serious time behind the artwork and the detail of it all. They should be producing animation with quality and perhaps even adding more frames for a much more impressive outcome. It seems though the animation isn’t much better than a standard Saturday morning cartoon. The quality should shine in 2016, these animated comic movies should be easily on par with the classics. Think of Akira, Fire & Ice or The Secret of Nimh, these were animated movies that were unforgettable. There’s no reason why Marvel or DC can’t be creating true animated superhero classics. From this new trailer I’d say it looks like we might be in for another mediocre slice of R-rated animation. What do you think?
Weird Ass Forgetten Cartoons: Disney’s Anti-Nazi Short Films?
I recently ran across this old Disney Anti-Nazi cartoon and it’s a truly weird piece of animation! This ten minute cartoon was released on January 15th, 1943 and these cartoons actually saved Disney from going bankrupt after a low box office return for the now legendary classic Fantasia.
Disney was contracted to make 32 cartoon WWII propaganda short films for $4500.00 each. This one is most popular of these largely forgotten cartoons. I guess in a weird way the world’s hatred for Nazi’s saved Disney’s career. These are some really bizarre cartoons that were based on a book by Gregor Ziemer. I wonder what the rest were all about? Apparently these shorts were banned for quite some time. Honestly strange stories about Walt Disney never cease to fascinate me!
Cartoons Dorks Should Be Watching, Issue #0: A Quick Tutorial
Welcome! Here at Universal Dork we try to offer diversity in our blogging that will appeal to all dorks out there. Here is a new running series of blogs appropriately entitled Cartoons Dorks Should be Watching! It will feature newer (within the last 5-10 yrs) cartoons that our generation might be missing. Or frankly, cartoons you might be passing off as ‘toon trash on Saturday mornings. It needs to be said that many of these cartoons have stayed focused at their primary audience…kids…so you have to enter willingly and just be a lover cartoons with great characters and stories.
Read on after the jump for just a bit more tutelage…
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Watchmen is out today, remember the cartoon?
Hype up time. It is on the tip of everyone’s tounge, The Watchmen is finally a full length motion picutre. Much like other comic seires before it, The Watchmen was first explored at a television show (not many people know this). Spiderman, X-men, even Batman were all television programs before making it to the big screen. Do you guys remember The Watchmen Saturday morning cartoon show?
It was one of my favorites!
Universal Dork 