Bugs Bunny's Thanksgiving Diet Review

Hello there Looney Tunes fans i figured since you yanks will be celebrating thanksgiving soon that i would review a cartoon special that has a thanksgiving theme and well here's my review of the first of two Looney Tunes thanksgiving specials Bugs Bunny's Thanksgiving Diet.

This special doesn't really have a plot since it's a basically a clip show with new footage of Bugs as a Doctor who gives advice to various other characters and that bit of advice would then lead into a cartoon. I have to admit that was a pretty funny set up having Bugs acting as a Doctor and giving out all the advice but sometimes you could tell when it was old footage and that took me out of it a little bit.

This special only stars the late Mel Blanc and the late June Foray so i can't really knock the acting since both of them are legends but i will say that at times Bugs does sound a bit different and since this special was made in the late 70's and near Mel's death it's understandable.

Now for this review i won't comment on the animation from the original cartoons since they always had great animation instead i'll just focus on the newly animated scenes. Honestly the animation in those scenes i thought were really well done it's not as good as the original shorts but given this was made for TV and on a TV budget the animation looks really good and honestly most scenes blend with the old footage really well.

This special gives alot of love to a character that i never even knew existed Millicent who as you can see from the above picture is a little bit over weight and she's obsessed with Bugs while she doesn't really get any jokes in the special she seems like a funny character and foil for Bugs and it makes me wonder if other Looney Tunes media use her.

Now i'm proud to say that alot of the jokes in this special are really freaking funny it's not just characters hitting each other over the head there's a lot of great word play and you get to see Bugs out smarting alot of people including Taz which is always fun to see.

Overall it's hard for me to say if you should watch this if your a Looney Tunes fans or not just because alot of the cartoons that they show have been in the movies and the newer stuff doesn't really add anything so for me the special gets a 7 maybe a 7.5 out of 10 you see even deciding on a rating is hard.

Murder On the Blackpool Express Review

Well then fellow british peoples i thought i'd review a classic work of art one that has been around for years on end and then i thought i'd review this made for TV movie instead so here is my review of Murder On The Blackpool Express.

The plot of this spoof is a Blackpool coach driver and a tour guide get caught up in a deadly conspiracy when there passengers begin mysteriously dying one by one. If that sounds familiar then that's because this is a spoof of the book Murder On The Orient Express and the story of this film i think follows the same plot of that book but instead puts a comedic spin on it which i loved.

The film stars Car Share's Sian Gibson , Johnny Vegas , Kimberley Nixon , Nigel Havers , Una Stubbs , Sheila Reid , Griff Rhys Jones and Nina Wadia. If your a Brit then you'll know just from the names alone that these are a who's who of British comedy and i can tell you right now without a shadow of a doubt everyone in this film is funny every actor in this film at one point had me laughing.

Now i've mentioned how funny the actors are in the film and that's because the film has a lot of really funny character driven jokes and one of them is actually really dark and is also a spoiler from the word go the jokes come thick and fast and for me all of them landed but with that being said i would understand if people didn't find the jokes funny.

As the plot and the title would suggest this is also a murder mystery and for me that's where the film fails just because they ignore the mystery aspect of the film and focus more on the jokes and because of that the film makers don't drop little bits of knowledge as to who the murderer could possibly be and so when they do make that reveal it comes out of know where.

I will admit that even tho i knew this film was set in and was filmed in Blackpool i honestly thought for a few seconds in the third act that they filmed in Southport and i've been to both places plenty of times and i know what the sea front for both places looks like and yet i still thought they went to Southport this is nothing against the movie but it's something i had to say because it lets you know that people who review films and TV shows are still just people.

Overall if you are in Britain and you have a telly box then i suggest going onto to catch up right now and watch this film it's that good if your not in Britain then sorry for me tho this film gets a solid 8 out 10. 

Some Spin-Offs From The Flintstones

Now i wasn't going to make this post that was until i saw that The Jetsons technically had a spin off called Astro and the space mutts so since The Flintstones was a huge show i thought i'd give you a quick rundown of some of there spin off shows.

The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show

Set in the prehistoric time period, the series follows Pebbles Flintstone and Bamm-Bamm Rubble as they face problems with growing up in the fictional town of Bedrock. As you can guess by the picture this show aged the characters up so they were in high school when this show came out.

The Flintstone Comedy Hour

This show was basically an hour long anthology series combining both The Flintstones and The Pebbles and Bam-Bam Show with the first half hour focusing on The Flintstones and four new episodes of Pebbles and Bam-Bam.

Fred Flintstone and Friends

From what i could gather about this show it's an anthology show that aired other Hanna-Barbera shows and it was hosted by Fred Flintstone.

The New Fred and Barney Show

I can't really find out much about this show bu what i did find out was it featured the traditional cast of characters and returned Pebbles and bam-Bam to there toddler form but there's nothing in terms of what the show was about.

The Flintstone Funnies

Again not much is known about this show but from what i can gather it mainly consisted of reruns from The Flintstone Comedy Show and that's really it.

Guys for this list i tried to avoid shows that most people were a where of hence why the Flintstone kids wasn't mentioned because alot of people have at least heard of that show but i hope that this list has informed you of more stone age fun that could possibly be had 

Scooby Goes Hollywood Review

Hey there Scooby fans it's time to review something that isn't related to Christmas in anyway and i think i've found the perfect thing and this special is also the first ever Scooby-Doo! special ever produced here is my review of Scooby Goes hollywood.

The plot of this special is Shaggy and Scooby leave there show in pursuit of fame and fortune and produce pilot films each starring Scooby. This movie is really freaking meta it's hard not to get sucked in and just have fun with it and it's refreshing that there really isn't a mystery to solve it's just Scooby and Shaggy going out on there own but the movie does loose points for Shaggy acting out of character.

Reprising there roles for the special are Don Messick as Scooby-Doo , Casey Kasem as Shaggy Rogers , Frank Welker as Fred Jones , Heather North Kenney as Daphne Blake and Pat Stevens as Velma Dinkley and they are joined by Rip Taylor. In all honesty the original cast kill it in this special Don and Casey especially since the film focuses on them the rest of the gang turn in good performances as well you can never go wrong with Frank Welker but for me it's Rip Taylor who let the cast down just because whenever he was on screen all i heard was Rip Taylor and not the character.

The animation in this special wasn't the best i've seen Hanna-Barbera do better animation then this but to be fair it wasn't the worst to come from the company either it just felt very bland it just felt like this was ordered by the network and not something that the team wanted to do so to get back at them they put little effort into the animation. This is Scooby-Doo so there has to be some form of effort put into it and there is a true passion for the characters in there but not as much as you'd see in an episode of the show.

Now this special does something that the show and the other movies didn't do and that's give us a look at how the gang met Scooby and it's something that i think is great because it gave an extra layer to the characters and it's something they actually did in the terrible live action prequel movies well the first one at least so it is cannon.

The comedy in this special for me was all over the place things that should have been funny weren't and things that weren't funny had a laugh track over it so people found them funny i will admit however that the parody films that Scooby does for me at least were pretty funny and since i'm a fan of Richard Donner's Superman i loved the parody of that movie the best even if the outfit he's wearing makes him look like Aquaman.

Unlike all other entries in the Scooby franchise this one is a full on musical and i have to say that some of cast can sing others not so much and i'm thankful they didn't give Rip Taylor a musical number but for me the best song was a song called "Scooby-Doo, We're Missing You" it's a great song and it's full on easter eggs like for example the song is done to the tune of the theme song to the new Scooby-Doo Movies and they use actual clips from the franchise.

Overall i;d say if your a Scooby fan then this is might be worth checking out since it was made to celebrate ten years of Scooby-Doo but if your not a fan of the franchise then this film/special won't make you one for me tho it gets a 6.5 out of 10.

  

Trolls Holiday Review

Yes i will pretty much review anything at this point and because it's early November ANOTHER Holiday themed special is out this time featuring the Trolls so here is my review of Trolls Holiday.

What is the plot of this special i here you ask well When Poppy queen of the Trolls figures out that the Bergens do not celebrate holidays she Branch and the other Trolls must get them into the spirit of the holiday. Yeah this special doesn't really call it self a christmas special but you can tell by the end that's what it is and the story is pretty much what you'd expect from a Trolls TV special.

The whole cast from the film reprise there roles for this special those being Anna Kendrick , Justin Timberlake , Zooey Deschanel and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. All of the actors that i've mentioned are pretty good in this special altho i have to admit i didn't know that Anna was back in this since poppy's voice sounded a bit different to me i only wish that the makes of this franchise would give the actors something more to do then say some mildly funny lines.

I think that the animation in this special an improvement over the animation from the film which i know is an odd thing to say considering both this and the film would have been in development at the same time but it's true everything in this special looks better then in the film. There's a great scene early on where they use mixture of animation techniques going from the traditional CGI animation to using puppet versions of the characters.

Now i will admit that this special got a few chuckles out of me and they mostly came from Poppy herself there's nothing really laugh out loud funny but there's another to at least get a smile or two the bad thing is the jokes aren't really that memorable chances are you'll here the joke but then forget about it within a few minuets.

Now this is a Trolls product so almost all of the songs are covers and i have to say that alot of them aren't that bad JT does a great version of Shaggy's Angel and there's a good upbeat version of "Love Train" but for me the only cover that isn't that good is "Holiday" it's the most obvious song to cover and it's not done well at all.

Overall this won't be the last we see of the Trolls as there will be a Trolls 2 and a netflix series called Trolls The beat Goes On out next year this special is the bogstanderd holiday special it does nothing new at all but it's a fun watch just a shame it was released in NOVEMBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it gets a 6 out of 10. 

Star vs. the Forces of Evil: The Battle for Mewni Review

Star fans season 3 has officially started and it's about time i got round to reviewing the movie that started season 3 so here is my review of The Battle For Mewni.

The basic plot of this movie is Star has to stop Toffee once and for all. That's really all the plot i could get out of it since the movie is basically the first several episodes of the third season and each episode has a different plot but the overarching plot is pretty good.

Of course all of the voice actors from the back (duh) and i have to say that they all did a really great job in this movie i personally thought that  Eden Sher was at her best in this episode she did a great job with all the funny lines and all the dramatic ones as well.

The show has always had some top notch animation but i feel that for this set of episodes the animation team went above and beyond the characters never looked this good and the movement was never this fluid i hope that the kind of animation was saw in this movie stays with us for the third season.

I'm just gonna come out and say it i love Star's new power if you can call it that it looks so freaking cool plus it wiped out Toffee in one single blast that right there makes it awesome and the overall build up to it i felt was pretty well done altho it was kinda obvious what was going to happen since there not going to kill of the main character when there just entering the third series.

Overall this was a good way to kick of the third season and i hope to god that disney get there act together and make a theatrically released Star movie since that would be epic and there's a huge fan base out there as well there will not a rating for this movie / batch of episodes / whatever you want ot call them.

Cartoon History: Scooby-Doo!

Well then Scooby fans it's time we take a look at a franchise everyone knows and loves and while it may have taken a few missteps it is still going strong and that franchise is Scooby-Doo!

The history of our favorite great dane is actually tied to the history of another show The Archie Show which featured the Archie characters as part of a band and it helped save the CBS Saturday morning lineup so Fred Silverman who worked for the network at the time contacted William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and asked them to pitch another show about a teenage rock group only this time the band would solve mysteries inbetween shows.

After attempting to develop his own version of what would become Scooby-Doo Where Are you which was going to be called House of Mystery Joe Barbera passed the project along to Joe Ruby and Ken Spears and also artist Iwao Takamoto and between them the trio changed the name of the show to Mysteries Five which was to feature characters called Geoff, Mike, Kelly, Linda, Linda's brother W.W. and their dog Too Much but tho after all there hard work the pitch was turned down by CBS.

Ruby and Spears went back to work on making a new pitch for the network now under the name Dobie Gills and with this new pitch came alot of changes "Mike" was dropped from the lineup while the rest of the cast got new names and personalities Geoff became Fred , Kelly became Daphne , Linda became Velma and W.W. became Shaggy Too much tho was the only character to be unchanged.

The new version of the show was pitched again and this time Fred Silverman liked the idea but not the name and so the show changed name again to Who's S-S-Scared? Silerman would go on to present the show to CBS executives CBS president Frank Stanton felt that the show was two scary for young kids and thus decided to pass on the show. Since the show was meant to be the centre piece of it's 1969-1970 line up Fred Silverman had Ruby, Spears, and the Hanna-Barbera staff revise pretty much everything they had done and that included toning down the spooky elements and highlighting the comedy aspects . It was during this time that the rock band element was dropped all together and more attention was given to Shaggy and Too Much and after many meetings changed the name of Too Much to Scooby-Doo! and it was this version of the show that got the green light from CBS.

Scooby-Doo Where Are You first premiered of Saturday September 13th 1969 with the episode "What a Night for a Knight" and it ran until 1975 but during 1972 there was another Scooby-Doo show also on the air at CBS The New Scooby-Doo Movies which were just forty minuet episodes with a different guest star every week which ran for 2 seasons totaling 24 episodes and with that Scoobys run on CBS would come to an end but the franchise would live on.

From 1976 until 1991 Scooby and the gang would find a new home on ABC thanks again to Fred Silverman and it's during this time we got shows like The Scooby-Doo Show , Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo twice , The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show , The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. As any fan will tell you it's during the Scrappy years that the show is at it's worse with the gang then mostly being just Shaggy , Scooby and Scrappy with everyone else just not being in the show at all until A Pup Named Scooby-Doo came on and dropped Scrappy and brought the original gang back together and for awhile this would be the last new Scooby-Doo! product.

The Scooby dry spell would end in 2002 when Warner Bros. released the first live action Scooby-Doo movie which was going to be much darker then the show i want go into two much details here because you can find it all on IMDB but it's a version that i wish they made but the film was such a big hit that a second live action movie was made just two years later and all of the cast came back for the sequel the less said about this film the better but it did give us a look at the future voice of Shaggy Matthew Lillard.

If it wasn't for the release of the 2002 movie then we wouldn't have gotten What's New Scooby-Doo which returned the character to Saturday mornings for the first time in seventeen years and along with this new series we got updated character designs and the use of technology was added to the series and this show proved that Scooby and the gang had alot of staying power as the new show would be on the year until 2006.

After that show had ended it was soon replaced by the dreadful Shaggy & Scooby-Doo get A Clue which once again saw the main characters get a redesign only this time it wasn't for the better and was the first Scooby-Doo series not to feature the late and great Casey Kasem as Shaggy with the role instead being played by Scott Menville also gone from the series cast were Fred , Velma and Daphne but it did maintain the Mystery Machine and it dropped the mystery aspect of the show all together so it was Scooby-Doo in name only luckily the show only ran for two years.

Two years would go by without a Scooby show but it was worth the wait because it 2010 we got Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated a show that did something other Scooby shows didn't do and that's give us a long running story and if a character died in an episode they stayed dead it was also the first series to feature Matthew Lillard as the voice of Shaggy. This series more then the rest focused more on the horror aspects with the ghosts sometimes being real and the characters actually had arc's this time around but three years later the show would end.

In 2015 a more comical take on the franchise would debut Be Cool Scooby-Doo! this time the mystery aspect was slightly toned down but not to much and the comedy became the main focus with one of the characters getting a personality change Daphne would now become the groups resident goofball often taking up weird and strange hobbies and as of this writing the show is still on the air.

As well as the two big screen live action Scooby films we got two made for TV movies called Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins and Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster and to be honest there pretty bad both serving as prequels to the 2002 movie and yet they contradict those movies and the less said about how Scooby looks the better.

Since the late 90's there's been a new direct to DVD Scooby-Doo movie almost every year with the first one being Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island which saw the teenagers get back together after a few years apart and the most recent film is called Lego Scooby-Doo! Blowout Beach Bash and next year will see the release of Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold which also happens to be the thirtieth film in the series.

Scooby-Doo is one of those franchises that will never go away there will always be someone trying to bring it back in some way shape or form and i for one am glad it's still around.