Thursday, June 30, 2011

James Brown is Fed



Hat tip to Dangerous Minds

The Yin and Yang of Mr. Go




Yes, I know the sound quality on this is not very good. Trust me, you are not missing anything.

If that is Christopher Lee, he's not credited on IMDB or the credits. It might just be a good Lee impersonator; but, it could be him, before he got respectable.

Now, the actual movie.


Thursday, June 23, 2011

Japanese TV, then and now


Very educational!
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There's a sign-off in this batch that makes you think someone just died and is descending to Heaven!


Encabulator



I'm glad there's a retro version of this. The original never really worked for me.
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Yeah, you heard that right.



It's so useful. I actually read an article about how this works.



I like how he gets older.



Thus proving that it's not what you say, but how you say it.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

James Bloody Burke



My god! What will happen to these people? It's a horror movie in the making.

I used to watch this a kid. Looking at it now, the thing that hurts the most is seeing the Twin Towers. And so it goes.

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The blackout of '77 was actually very important to the entire hip-hop movement.

Many electronic stores were targeted during the looting spree and the DJ equipment stolen was soon put to good use. Back then this kind of equipment was way beyond the financial reach of most kids and, unlike now, there was no second-hand market to speak of. As Grandmaster Caz, one of the early pioneers (and one of the Cold Crush Brothers) so rightly points out: "It was like Christmas for black people. The next day there were a thousand new D.J.'s"

Remember that, as you bob yo head.



I do so love the phrase "friendly monster". I enjoy this clip for axe-action, if nothing else.

What do you want to change?



Burke started as the science reporter at the BBC. Watch as he reasonably freaks out in this clip.



Oh, here's a thing I saw in high school! (That was back in nineteen mumble-mumble.) I'll tell you, it was the first thing in my mind when I saw this story.



Burke went on to make "The Day the Universe Changed". I had always respected his willingness to view things from an off point.



And, he was willing to make concessions to those who thought differently from him.



I include this because I know that no hero above reproach. Nothing is sacred. Everything is permitted.








Friday, June 17, 2011

Our Favorite Video Tapes: The Mouse and His Child


Image and video hosting by TinyPic

The Mouse and His Child (1977)

GOOD MORNING CAPTAIN!

I hope this cheers up a few of my buds!



Juggling



My happy (self)medicated self saw this and said, "That's that for THAT!"

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Personally, I love juggling. I'm not very good at it myself (I keep leading with the left hand), but I always appreciate when it's done well. It's magic. It's slight of hand. It's dance.



Look familiar?



Yeah. That was real.



Sadly, no amen break.



It helps if they're cute.

I could watch that all night.



I'd post more of the lovely brothers, but it's getting late. You should look up their cover of "A Comedy of Errors", however. There's a great sequence with a spear.



There's a hat trick everyone should learn. I'm looking at you, steampunks.



In the end, I leave you with this. It's people having fun, doing what they do well. May a happy future come where we may all do the same.

Mad props to @PRguitarman for that first video link.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

What is WRONG with your food?



After watching this, which has to be the most useless product I've ever seen, I'm convinced that we need to make our commercials for ChipStix©.

I keep thinking it's a hoax.

Baby Love Child

Baby Love Child from DANGEROUS MINDS on Vimeo.

Listen for the Amen Break.

The Greeks



Hat tip to Cartoon Brew.

Nostalgic Critic Tackles Little Nemo

I don't normally watch this guy often, but see he just go around to this film a few days back and well, why not!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Puppets!



I loved this the first time I saw it, ages ago.
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I'm trying to figure out if automata count as a puppet. I think they do.

Anyhoo, we're fascinated by puppets here at Anime Hell. And not in some geeky way.



ANY KIND OF PUPPET.



Is stop-action a puppet? Yes. A very slow one.

(Everything individually micced for your listening pleasure.)



Incidentally, the mechanics that make this doll work were copied for a very simple robot that caries product from one track to another where there can be no track. I can't find the video at the moment.



I still have plans to create an El Topo Gigo. Or maybe a Topo G.I.Joe?

By the way. That first video? Here's what it samples.

Blossom Dearie - "It Amazes Me"


Sazae San CM 1978 - 1986


Sazae-san's popularity endures...

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

So much potential

Kuba-kun forgot both his toothbrush and paste at my place from this weekend.



I dare someone to cosplay it.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Karasu Tengu Kabuto



I'm just going to leave this here.

A-Kon Debriefing

The original plan was the Ninja Hell squad would stay at my place. I had meal plans for this: chicken tikka masala with palak paneer and naan Thursday night, lunch in the tunnels on Friday, leg of lamb with tabbouleh that night, and that wonderful beef tenderloin Saturday before the show with Sushiworld afterwards.

That was not to be.


THE NEW ZOO REVUE!


More fun with our three animal pals (plus Doug and Emmy Jo)!

Thursday, June 09, 2011

VHS has met its end!

At least you've tried Victor!

VHS Evolution



You can see the life cycle of the VCR go from a ginormous box to sleek and sexy consumer friendly just before the asteroid of DVD killed them. We are all made to be thrown away.

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Girlie Stuff



I watch this cartoon and and think, "Do not fade, do not grow old."

But what I really think about is that new lotion that smelled just like one of these dolls and how it took me back.

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Each one of these dolls had their own unique scent. My sister and I had the first six, and it was not long before we discovered that the Rose Petal clothes also fit She-Ra dolls and Strawberry Shortcake.



This was another set of toys that had a smell. I don't know why girls' toys had to have specific scents. Maybe they thought we couldn't see that well.



I can't find this one in English. "Charmkins, Charmikns, They love hangin' around." They also were scented. I think I only had three of these growing up: Morning Glory, Poison Ivy, and some weird raccoon in a dress.



A major selling point in any girls' toy is the hair. We had a pink one, a green one, and a blue one. They had an unfortunate run-in with some Magic Sand and never recovered. Mildew is not your friend.



Once again, the hair. It's all about the hair.



I do recall that those tails would pop right out if you tugged on them hard enough. It was just a metal ferrule holding everything in. And yes, you can get them back in with a rat-tail comb.



At least they didn't have hair. But you can almost hear Germany in that theme song.


Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Depth Study (1957)

Depth Study (1957) from Cartoon Brew TV on Vimeo.



Ah, the leisure class.

It's odd when you look at our relationship with TV. It makes me wonder what this film would be like today, discussing the Internet.

Ken Nordine - "The Vidiot" (1957)

Friday, June 03, 2011

Florida Anime Experience 2011 DOOM Playlist

The Florida Anime Experience was conceived from the start to be a low-key affair and was planned accordingly. The event was a success, exceedingly attendance estimates by virtue of the fact that quite a few of us poor schmucks in Florida can't easily get to any of the major anime conventions being held in North America that weekend. For cons of this scale, most attendance is on Saturday only...and so with that in mind I scheduled my Panel OF DOOM! for 10:00 PM on Friday. They gave me the Main Events room, and while I didn't fill the grand ballroom to capacity like the various Anime Hells that occurred Memorial Day weekend, part of that was because the total convention attendance for that time wouldn't have filled the room anyway. I was perfectly satisfied with my turnout. Setup was a breeze and all the tech ran flawlessly; the show started at 10:00 PM on the dot (after leading in with some vintage Sailor Moon toy commercials) and ended right at midnight, just as scheduled. This despite the lead-in being a cosplay-related "American Idol"-style contest!

Here's the not-exactly-chronological playlist:

01. Chargeman Ken - every Panel OF DOOM! this year is opening with this
02. Captain America trailer (1990)
03. Reb Brown Captain America with Christopher Lee (whose birthday was that day!)
04. Fantastic Four Cartoon – Magneto the Angry, Stoned Driver
05. Internet blogger "Koji Oe" trashes his home and burns his little anime girl figurines while screaming at his manga as though they were real people
06. An irate furry with a message to all the "haters"
07. G.I. Joe Street Fighter Commercials
08. The "Street Fighter" battle in the Jackie Chan live-action City Hunter
09. Dr. Slump commercials followed by Jackie Chan fighting while dressed up as Arale from Dr. Slump
10. "Open Your Eyes" music video featuring "Rocky" vs "ED-209" in a boxing match
11. Commercials for “Mr. Brain’s…”
12. Wild 7 – Introductory scene of the gang foiling the bank robbers
13. Miami Connection - Ninja battle across the University of Central Florida campus once home to JACO
14. Sushi TV – failed late-night anime block pitch for titles like Baoh and MD Geist
15. True My Heart vs Commando – the Arnold movie repurposed to be the peppy opening to a Japanese gal game
16. Onion News Network - Justice Shed
17. Jersey Shore Gone Wilde - reciting dialogue from Jersey Shore as if it were an Oscar Wilde play
18. Corn Pone Flicks – The Bicycle Thief
19. The Weird Al Show - Macho Man Randy Savage pays Weird Al a visit
20. Cheers Beer ads
21. Stone Cold Steve Austin Impersonates Rick Astley
22. Job-placement site advertisement featuring Kenshiro
23. My Father Is a Hero - Jet Li can't stop the bad guys until he uses a small child as a makeshift flail/yo-yo
24. Fire and Ice - Breakdancing and Skiing, Together At Last
25. Science Ninja Team Gatchaman - Professor Nambu Is a DICK (baby whales, Magma Jesus in lieu of the rapture)
26. Deadly Friend – Ma Fratelli loses her head courtesy of a basketball pass
27. Italian trailer for Lupin the Third: Secret of Mamo
28. Orson Welles for Paul Masson…followed by the drunken outtakes
29. Orson Welles taking pictures of little ballerinas using his Vivitar camera
30. Dialogue from Truck Turner dubbed over footage of Uhura from Star Trek: The Animated Series
31. Redubbed ad for Zoobooks
32. The Way of the Gun – Opening Scene
33. 1980s Astro Boy – Uran and the Creepy Old Man
34. My Lucky Stars - Bodybuilder Geisha fight
35. Kids in the Hall – Bruce is more than just “the poo guy”
36. Golgo 13 and Ashita no Joe pachinko ads
37. Cillit Bang Adverts followed by parodies
38. Nicolas Cage behaving…erratically…in Vampire’s Kiss
39. Space Battleship Yamato – the Comet Empire hates dinosaurs
40. Wild 7 – Interrogation scene culminating in surprise impalement
41. How to Comment on Youtube Videos
42. Deadly Prey aka “The Most Action-Packed Movie Of All Time”
43. Ten Tigers of Kwangtung Finale

Animazement Hell 2011 Playlist



The Animazement 2011 Hell played to a capacity crowd, who laughed, cried, and frantically waved their arms back and forth like metronomes. You can relive all the magic with the handy Animazement 2011 Hell playlist, now available over on the Animazement forums. Thanks go to this year's Hellions, Cameron Blashka and Chris Culpepper, with special thanks to David Smith for his editing assistance.

Music to Chase The Dragon By


Back before I had access to a VCR I used to tape movies and TV shows on a portable 3M tape recorder. I placed the little microphone by the TV speaker and pressed both play and record at the same time and filled up a cassette tape of lo-fi mono goodness. Later I played back the cassette over and over, my way of enjoying the movies without being able to watch the movies "on demand." I quickly noticed that Movies had a richer sound then TV shows and sitcoms. This was my introduction to sound design.

Which is probably why I'm enjoying this Creative Commons Netlabel project so much.



Ergo Phizmiz has taken Albert Zugsmith's "Confessions of an Opium Eater" and edited and mastered Albert Glasser's film score, along with the movie's sound design and some choice Vincent Price monologues. That's the brilliance of this Chinstrap Music project. Going through the soundscape of public domain films and finding some great movie music. What a great idea.

Be sure to listen to "Opium" for the full bad trip seedy opium den effect.

The Hard Sell for Soft Drinks



Thanks to Skip Elsheimer at A/V Geeks for sharing these classic cola commercials.

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Happy 20th Birthday Liquid TV!

CAUTION: This post is graphically, artistically and embeddably intensive!

A sample of what got most of us rather pumped up for art school!
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From the future director of THE SIMPSONS and KING OF THE HILL...


From the creator of Courage The Cowardly Dog...


From the animator behind those trippy RICHARD LINKLETTER films...



From the tree-hugging hippie behind FERN GULLY...


From the weirdo behind ROCKO'S MODERN LIFE...


From the guy who did Beavis & Butt-Head, King of the Hill Office Space and something else I forgot...




Hmmm, quite an early one for the Oscar-winning director of "Ryan"...














Probably the one reason why anyone out there remembers this show at all...











This message comes to us from JAIL!

Acen 2011 Anime Hell Playlist


Gavv posted his playlist in the Hellforum. Go check it out.

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Merchendizing!

Somehow or other, Dan and I got in a conversation about watches tonight.

Apparently, some kid on Twitter said that only old people wear wrist-watches. I can see where the kid is coming from, as most cell phones today have a time function of some sort. I had always used the analog clock as the screen-saver on my Nokia 1100 (don't laugh, it worked) because I thought it was funny.

Dan won't wear a wrist-watch because he is a furry monster from The North and has trouble with the straps. I think wrist-watches look like shackles, to be honest, and we discussed pocket-watches. From there, I mentioned that I don't half-mind watch broaches.

And that led to Google.
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The thing about a nurse's watch is the dial is upside down so the nurse can read it. (Yes, I said dial, not face. Apparently, that is the correct term, according to a clock-maker I know.)

During this conversation, we found some very nice watches, none of which I would ever buy.

Let's go back to that first link, shall we? I got stuck looking at lots of nurse watches and we started to poke around that particular site and we found...

...this thing.

It does not look like much. It's just a foldable water-bottle. But then I wondered how much custom printing on it would cost and if we could get the "rules for a healthy con" printed on that with the web-site on the other side and it made a lot of sense.

The candy we throw at the shows isn't free, and we've been trying to figure out how to come out even on this. We like throwing candy, don't get me wrong.

Most of our prizes are donated by White Lightning Productions, but anything after that is cost we soak up. We can't charge admission due to the copyright status of our source material. We don't want to put ads on the site and a PayPal "donate" button seems tacky. The idea of being an Amazon partner has been bandied about; but, again, it seems tacky.

But we could sell a water-bottle. During the summer cons? Oh yeah. We could do that.