Tiny Toon Adventures Review

Hello there toonsters the Looney Tunes have always been and will always be popular characters but in the early nineties something different was done with the characters and before you all say it no the characters weren't turned into little kids instead a new series was created that showcased the next generation of Looney Tunes so here is my review of Tiny Toon Adventures.

The set up of the show is rather hard to explain since there's no plot or premise at all it's the next generation of Looney Tunes living life , having adventures and attending ACME Looniversity where all the teachers are the old cast of characters and each of the episodes would almost always have a different set up but I will say that the pacing of each episode is pretty good at times but there are some episodes that feel slower.

Starring in this show was Charlie Adler , Joe Alaskey , Danny Cooksey , John Kassir , Maurice LaMarche , Tress MacNeille , Gail Matthius , Don Messick , Candi Milo , Rob Paulsen , Kath Soucie , Cree Summer and Frank Welker. Yeah I know that there are alot more actors in this show but that's the thing there's a lot more actors heck i've not even scratched the surface of the people that are in this show.

All of the actors in this show give really great performances and as you can see by who's starring in the show that's not really a surprise alot of the cast members are legends and while this show might not be the best example of their work it's still a group of really fine actors and actresses giving it there all and they are all really good and most importantly really funny in this show.

What helps make this show stand out is the fact that there were several different animation studios involved with each episode while Warner Bros did infact produce the show they didn't do the animation instead companies such as TMS Entertainment , Wang Film Productions, AKOM and StarToons but there was one studio that got let go after the first season due to there inconsistent levels of quality and that's Kennedy Cartoons. 

The overall quality of the animation isn't that bad it still has the same amount of passion init that the classic Looney tunes shorts would have had except now they actually have a budget but tho with that being said there are some episodes where the animation isn't that great but they are few and far between at least in my eyes.

Honestly guys the broadcast history of this show is more interesting than the animation history because the pilot episode and the first season ran on CBS but then from 1992 onward the show aired on Fox kids I guess CBS had figured that they had seen enough of the characters since the first season had a whopping sixty five episodes but it seems strange that CBS wouldn't continue airing a hit show.

The show lasted alot longer then what people think because even tho the show only had three seasons like I said that first season was sixty five episodes and lasted nearly a full year but out side of that the show also had a direct to VHS movie called Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation and two TV specials called Tiny Toon Spring Break and Tiny Toons' Night Ghoulery so they made alot of Tiny Toons content and I can guarantee your never going to see the same episode twice because in total there are close to one hundred episodes.

When I went into this show I wasn't expecting there to be alot of adult jokes in it but low and behold in the second ever episode there's a Watchmen reference it's a quick little reference but near the start of episode two on the chalk board behind plucky there's some text that reads "who watches the ducksters"or something like that and it's a nod to Watchmen and i',m sat here wondering if any kid ever got what that was a reference to.

Honestly alot of the jokes in this show are funny there's a really funny anti-smoking episode which was in the first season and so it aired before the infamous "One Beer" episode and it's full of small little jokes all of the jokes in this show are so funny and so well written that you can see why alot of the same staff went on to work on Animaniacs they are that talented and not afraid to poke fun at themselves.

I cannot talk about this show and not mention the theme song to me the Tiny Toons theme song is so good that t should be remembered for years to come in that one minuet intro we get a brief introduction as to who all the characters are and what there personality trait is and it helps that the theme song was done by Bruce Broughton who's worked on alot of great shows even recently he's done the opening to The Orville.

Overall i'm so glad that I went back a re-watched this show (yes I watched it growing up) it is a very funny show and one that I recommend any Looney Tunes fan watch but the show does have some problems tho so it gets an 8.5 out of 10 from me.

Hercules and Xena The Animated Movie: The Battle for Mount Olympus Review

Oh boy here is a movie I didn't think i'd be reviewing anytime soon but here we are for you see in the nineties there were two live action shows called Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and it's spin off Xena: Warrior Princess both shows were popular that they decided to make a movie spin off and boy oh boy do I have some thoughts so let's get going shall we.

I would like to tell you what the plot of the movie is but the movie barely has one but the basic premise of the film is Hercules and Xena have to team up with the gods of Mount Olympus to stop the place from being taken over. Yeah this movie doesn't have that much plot in it it just has the basic setup and while the set up does work for an episode of either show it doesn't work for a movie for a movie you need a beginning , a middle and an end here we have a beginning but that's it there's no middle or no end.

Now since this is based of not one but two shows we have alot of returning actors and they are Kevin Sorbo as Hercules , Lucy Lawless as Xena , Michael Hurst as Iolaus , Renee O'Connor as Gabrielle , Alexandra Tydings as Aphrodite and Kevin Smith (not that one) as Ares. The returning cast are decent or as decent as they can be since alot of them aren't that good but out of the returning actors honestly i'd say ether Lucy or Renee are the best ones because they are actually trying.

In terms of new characters we have Josephine Davison as Alcmene and Artemis , Joy Watson as Hera , Peter Rowley as Zeus , David Mackie as Porphyrion , Alison Wall as Tethys and Mnemosyne and Ted Raimi as Crius. The new cast do not fair much better because I cannot recall a single memorable performer i'm not even kidding there all just bland performances.

Now when I usually research a films production history i'll usually find who animated it and in most cases I can usually find out who did it but in this case i'm glad that I couldn't find out who did the animation because the animation is so bad it looks like something that got made cheaply in the 60's instead of something that was cheaply made in the 90's.

If that's not bad enough the characters don't even look like their live action counterparts how do you mess that up you have literally hours worth of footage to sit through so you should be able to make Xena look like Lucy Lawless this is film making 101 and for some reason they made Hercules way to muscular when Kevin Sorbo was never that huge in real life.

Just to give you guys some background information on both shows Hercules: The Legendary Journeys started in 1995 and ran until 1999 spanning six seasons I cannot find what network it ran on but it was huge and one of the shows popular characters was Xena who would be given her own spin off series starting in 1995 and ran until 2001 again spanning six seasons and Xena was huge step forward for female led action shows and has thus earned her spot in pop culture history.

I'm not gonna lie and say that both shows were perfect in every way because they weren't but they were at least enjoyably bad you can watch both shows and laugh at how bad they were because they embraced it here tho you can't do that because the film isn't so bad it's good it's just flat out bad and for something that's based on something that's all ready bad that's not a good thing at all.

This movie isn't even ninety minuets it's more like seventy five minuets long and the first three minuets of the film is a dreadful song sequence which adds nothing to the story and it's only purpose is to tell us Hercules's backstory something that fans of the show would already know about so it makes that whole opening pointless.

Like both live action shows the best parts of this movie are the fight scenes since the fight scenes are now animated the team could really go overboard with what the characters could do and to me that adds to the cheese factor of this film and it makes it slightly bearable to watch but given how bad this film is that's not really saying that much.

Overall this film is pretty god damn cheesy but it's not a good movie heck i'd struggle to say it's ok movie there's no wonder this film was released straight to VHS it really is a bad film and it scores a 3.5 out of 10 from me.

Rating Some of Makoto Shinkai's Films From Great To Masterful

Makoto Shinkai is one of the best upcoming anime directors around he only has five films to his credit and he's already being called the next miyazaki which by the way is huge freaking shoes to fill and so instead of rating his films from worst to best I thought i'd rate them from great to Masterful because honestly all of his films are great so here we go.

Journey to Agartha aka Children Who Chase Lost Voices

I know that alot of people know this film as Children Who Chase Lost Voices but over here in the UK it was released as Journey to Agartha so that's what i'm calling it honestly the only real issue I had with this film is the fact that goes on for far far far to long but apart from that it's a great film to watch and one that I happily own on DVD.

The Garden Of Words

Now i'll admit that I was going to review this film before it turned into this post but while this film is indeed great there are a few issues I have with it 1) the story never gets resolved yeah the film just ends with no real conclusion and 2) nothing really interesting happens at all this might be way this film is only forty five minuets but nothing really interesting happens at all but still I would take all of that over having a film that feel boring.

Your Name

I bet alot of you right now are wondering why this film isn't at the top well that's because I think there's a film better then this one and that's not a knock about this film infact it's as close to perfect as a film can get but since I watched the film months after everyone else the hype for this film was so huge that no matter how good the film was it was always going to fail in my head because the fans made it out to be the next best thing in the history of the world.

5 Centimeters per Second

Yes this is the film that I honestly think is better then Your Name it's Shinakis second film and it relly is so good if your a shinkai fan then I highly recommend you check out this film because alot of the themes that are present in Your Name were in this film it has a great story that we can all relate to , fantastic animation and the dub is actually freaking great and like Journey To Agartha and Your Name I also own this film on DVD and I try to watch it at least once or twice a year.

Guardians Of The Galaxy: Cosmic Avengers Volume 1 Review

Guardians fans the team has found great success on the big screen and I guess you could say the small screen as well altho that depends on who you ask but before they were household names they were a little known comic book team of heroes and in 2013 the team along with a whole host of characters where apart of the Marvel Now which was a relaunch of several comic books and here is my review of the first volume from the 2013 Guardians Cosmic Avengers.

The plot of the book is Earth is now officially of limits to all alien races and it's up to the Guardians and Iron Man to find out what's going on and to put a stop to it. Honestly the plot is well actually is hard for me to say if it's good or bad since I cannot make up my mind either way since it's a typical Guardians plot line but then there are things that are in there which just don't add up but i'll go into those later on since I have alot of thoughts on those.

Making up the team for this book is Star Lord , Drax , Gamora , Rocket and Groot and for some really odd reason they are joined by Iron Man and not the Riri Williams version either it's Tony Stark and it's just weird seeing him with the Guardians i'm not opposed to it since it does lead to some good banter with Rocket but when you think of Guardians Of The Galaxy you don't think of Iron Man so it seems like an odd thing to make him apart of the team.

Speaking of Iron Man they give perhaps the laziest reason as to why he's in space they just say that he's on vacation from Earth and that's it no one questions it and i'm sat here thinking "Tony your an Avenger if anything you need to be on Earth incase it's under attack" and what happens right when Tony leaves earth it gets attacked it only makes me wish that they had come up with a better excuse to have Tony join the team like maybe for example he wants to see what's out there and thus he joins up with the Guardians because they travel all over the galaxy.

The art for this story was done by Steve McNiven who's worked on the original Civil War book as well as many others and honestly I chose the above image because for me it's the best example of his art and the art in this book is pretty good i'm no expert artist by any means but I felt that the artwork in this book was good that at times I wouldn't need to read the speech bubbles in order to understand the story I could just see the pictures and understand what's going on.

For those that don't know the Cosmic Avengers only covers the first three issues of the 2013 Guardians run but the collection also added Tomorrows Avengers number 1 which for me was a strange thing to do why not just leave it with Cosmic Avengers don't try to confuse me by adding in a different issue from a different series it doesn't even connect to Cosmic Avengers in anyway what so ever.

Now lets get onto those issues that I mention before for some unknown reason they made Peter come off as a bit of a douche bag in this story and it serves no purpose at all and it makes him seem very unlikable as a character there was just no reason at all to make him come across as this unlikable yes he saw his mother get killed and he wasn't aware that his dad was a king but that's still no excuse to have him acting in this way what so ever.

The other major issue I have is more story based when the Guardians plus Tony are captured two of the guards mention that Gamora is the daughter of Thanos so instead of letting at least her go to keep daddy sweet they keep her locked up because yeah that's what i'd do if I found out one of the mad titans daughters was going to jail they could have had pretend to be knocked out and then knock the guards out and let her friends out at least that would have been in character.

I will say that the action is honestly really well done and for me that's nothing new since the Guardians films have great action in them but for some reason I never knew that the comics did so for me it was great to see that it wasn't just the films that had good action and unlike the films the action in this story helps advance the story and that's something that I see so rarely be it in film or in comic book.

I picked up both this book and Deadpool Vs Thanos for £5 each and for me given that most comic book collections go for at least double that price i'd say is a freaking steal and I actually had a choice to either review this r Deadpool Vs Thanos and I think I might have made the wrong choice for all the reasons i've listed above but I chose this because I was honestly more familiar with Guardians then I was with Deadpool.

Overall story wise the book is pretty interesting but since it's the start of the new run of books you know that the team will make it out ok so there's no stakes but if you like the comic book feel of the first film then I see no harm in picking up this book for me tho it scores a 6 out of 10.

Thunderbirds Review

Animation fans I have reviewed so many American animated shows both old and new that i've pretty much got it down to a fine art well now to mix things up i'm reviewing a show from my home country and a show that was not only apart of my childhood but also would have neen around thirty years old by the time I watched it and that's Thunderbirds.

The basic premise of the show is in the 21st century the Tracy family operate a unique private mechanized emergency response service. Yeah as you can now doubt tell but the plot summery this show is episodic and there's no overarching story but tho I think for this show it would have worked either way so i'm not really going to knock the show for not having a story arc but I am going to knock the show for having pretty bad pacing but i'll get more into that later on.

Now shockingly even tho this is a British made show all of the actors barring two people are all American and there's an Australien so the Americans are Peter Dyneley as Jeff Tracy , Shane Rimmer as Scott Tracy , both David Holliday (series 1) and Jeremy Wilkin (series 2) as Virgil Tracy and Matt Zimmerman as Alan Tracy. The Australien actor is Ray Barrett as John Tracy and The Hood with the British actors being David Graham as Gordon Trach , Parker , Brains and Kyrano , Christine Finn as Tin-Tin Kyrano and Grandma Tracy and finally we have series co-creator Sylvia Anderson as Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward.

The acting in the show is pretty decent at least for the time it was being made I will say that i'm glad they didn't have the cast put on a British accent they actually made this show so it could be sold to American networks but that said I do wish that they had but a little bit more effort into the voices but that's only a very minor nitpick.

Now then most of my animated reviews be they for a movie or a series one of the few things that I can always mention is who animated them but with this show there isn't a company who did the animation and that's because this show was made using puppets in a technique called Supermarionation no I have no clue what that means but from what I can gather basically it means that the lips move in sync with the audio there's alot more to it then that but I don't understand it all myself so i'm not going to bore you by going through it step by step.

The puppets in the show honestly do hold up really well I was worried going into this that the puppets wouldn't be as good as I remember them being in fact they hold up rather well my only issue with the puppets is the same thing that any fan of this show has and that's the fact you can see the strings pretty much all of the time they are on screen but tho it#s not distracting at least for me it isn't.

I couldn't do a review of this show and not mention the film that was inspired by it Team America: World Police because yeah this show and how they used puppets instead of live actors inspired South Park creators Matt Stone And Trey Parker to create there second feature length film except where Thunderbirds is a show made for kids Team America is made for adults so them being puppets and being able to see the string is part of the joke.

For those that don't know or are an American this show first aired on Associated Television in the UK which is a franchise owned by UK channel ITV it ran from September 30th 1965 to Christmas Day 1966 sadly I cannot find where or when it aired in America but the show ran for two series with a grand total of thirty two episodes with series one having a whopping twenty six episodes and series two having six episodes.

Something else that might surprise you is the fact that each episode clocks in at around fifty minuets this was due to Lew Grade who was the shows financial backer and was one of the founders at the shows distributor ITC Entertainment after he was done praising the first episode for it's plot and special effects he said this "That's not a television series, that's a feature film!" and then proceeded to increase the shows budget from £25,000 per episode to £38,000. 

It really is refreshing to here news of someone who believed in a show so much that he not only asked the co-creator Gerry Anderson to double the length of each episode but also increased the show's budget which I assume didn't make him popular in the office that day but it goes to show that if someone does have faith in something then they should go that extra mile to make it a huge success and Lew did that.

Even tho i've just this second praised Lew for ordering an increase in length I have to say that there are times when the episodes become boring and I think that's due to the pacing being rather slow especially around say the twenty / twenty five minuet mark and i'm honestly not sure why that is but I don't think that every episode needed to be fifty minuets some of them could have been around forty five minuets.

I have something to admit I was a bit of a Thunderbirds fan growing up in the 90's you see that above picture yeah I had that as a kid and I played with it alot I also had a few of the other toys that they had as well and I also had a few of the VHS tapes that they released and to add to all of that when the episodes where re-aired I would watch them even tho chances are i've seen that episode on one of the VHS tapes but bottom line is i'm a fan and have been since I was a kid.

If your a James Bond fan out there then you might like to know that the special effects for this show were done by the late and great Derek Meddings and I have to say that the special effects in this series are truly fantastic and you can tell that alot of time and passion went into them and it truly is a shame that we don't have somebody like Derek in the industry now.

Just to give you guys an example of how popular this franchise was at the time there was not one but two feature films made released in 1966 and 1968 respectively (both of which I plan on reviewing) no kids show at the time got a feature film but with Thunderbirds it was so popular that it earned two films it also earned a lesser remake which even Gerry Anderson hates so if you hate that film then your not alone.

Before we got the actually decent CGI remake Thunderbirds Are Go there was talk for many years I believe the earliest it dates back to is 2005 but believe it or not it's not the first the first one was a sequel anime called Thunderbirds 2086 well I say it's a sequel since it was produced by ITC but it doesn't feature the involvement of any of the original creators.

Overall if your a fan of what i'm calling puppet animation then I recommend you watch this show but be ready to see all of the strings and to be bored in most of the episodes but it's worth it for the fantastic special effects and the great music by Barry Grey so this original series scores an 8.5 out of 10 from me.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 2 Review

Batman fans yesterday I brought you a review of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 so it only seems right that today I finish this story of by bringing you a review of the second part so here is my review of Batman: the Dark Knight Returns Part 2 enjoy it batfans.

So then what is the plot of this movie I pretend your saying right now well Batman has finally returned but so has an old foe and he's out for vengeance the only way he knows how. I know i'm being really vague in the plot summery but that's because honestly there really isn't that much of a story outside of what I described but I will give the film this it does have pretty solid pacing.

Returning from the first film is Robocop as Batman , One of the hot chicks from Modern Family as Robin , Michael Emerson as The Joker , Maria Canals-Barrera as Commissioner Ellen Yindel , David Selby as Jim Gordon and Michael Jackson as Alfred Pennyworth. Honestly it's hard for me to say which of the returning cast did the best job since all of them are really good in this movie altho it's pretty strange hearing Peter Weller playing Batman and fact after when I went to watch this movie all I could hear in my head was Robocop.

They are joined by Mark Valley as Superman , Robin Atkin Downes as Oliver Queen , Tress MacNeille as Selina Kyle , Jim Meskimen as President Ronald Reagan and Conan O'Brien as David Endochrine. What's Interesting about this film is voice acting legend Tara Strong provides additional voices for this film so if you hear a character that sounds like Bubbles now you know why.

Out of the new cast I'd have to say that my favorite was Mark Valley as the big blue boy scout just because he portrays a more wiser version of the character and I think that's a more interesting take on a classic character.

Thankfully I didn't need that many Shovels this time because I already knew that returning to do the animation for this film was Moi Animation and I have to say that the animation in this film was slightly better then the previous I sat slightly because you still get the odd looking drawing but they make up for it with the well animated fight scenes which for me is when you should always get the best animation.

Honestly there's not that much that really bugged me about this film which is strange for me just because there's usually a few things that really annoy me in films but i've pretty much mentioned the only real issues I personally had with the film so if your expecting me to crack jokes about how bad the film this I really can't because it's a good film.

I will say that if you want to see a better version of Batman V Superman then this is fr sure the film because this film handles there conflict so much better if I remember right in the theatrical cut of BVS there conflict is pretty much summed up in one sentence but here we are given multiple scenes so when they finally do come to blows we fully understand why they are fighting instead of "let's fight because it would be funny".

Now I've received comments pretty much saying why I should have read the original graphic novel first the reason why I chose to take a look at the movie versions first is because A) despite The dark Knight Returns only being three issues since they can have as many pages as they need per issue it means you could have alot of filler and B) I'm honestly lazy in the time it would have taken my to get through all the issues I could have watched both parts of this movie.

If Batman doing the cover pose in the movie was deemed as fan service then this movie has a scene which is fan service if your an American and I think the above image pretty much says it all it's such a pro America image that it really doesn't fit in with the rest of the film if the scene was Superman dressed in a suit talking to Bruce and Eagle happened to fly over heard it would work but just look at it how is this image not pro America.

I touched on this briefly in this review but the fight scenes in this film are really freaking good and unlike freaking BVS there was no "Martha" moment either in those scenes and this is where the film being a UK rated 15 really worked because in the final fight with Superman you feel every single punch and you get to see both heroes bleed.

Overall this is was a pretty good conclusion to the first film but if I were to choose i'd say that the first film was better and as you can tell by the above image i'm really looking forward to the Hush animated movie that's coming out I give this film a 7.5 out of 10.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 Review

Batman fans the dark knight has featured in so many animated films ranging from great to bizarre but he's never been in a two part film before will in 2012 and 2013 that all changed with the release of the two part film adaptation of the Frank Miller classic The Dark Knight Returns so here is my review of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 1.

The plot for part 1 is Batman has not been seen for ten years a new breed of criminal ravages Gotham City forcing a now 55-year-old Bruce Wayne back into the cape and cowl but does he still have what it takes to fight crime in a new era?. yeah this part of the film is mainly about Bruce coming out of retirement and I have to say that seeing an old Bruce suiting up as Batman perfectly ties in with his character and the story is fairly solid even if it is basically the first half or so of the graphic novel.

Starring as Batman in this movie is Robocop i'm not even making that up actor Peter Weller who plays Batman in this film also played Robocop in the original film and he is joined by Ariel Winter as Carrie Kelley , David Selby as Jim Gordon , Wade Williams as Harvey Dent , Michael Emerson as The Joker , Maria Canals-Barrera as Commissioner Ellen Yindel , Michael Jackson (no not that one) as Alfred Pennyworth , Bruce Timm as Thomas Wayne and Gary Anthony Williams as Mutant Leader.

I was honestly shocked at how good Peter Weller was as Batman / Bruce Wayne I really can't say how he portrays him but it's one that suits the tone of this film very well and I liked Ariel Winter in this film and I think her version of Carrie Kelley is solid since her character does provide some of the much needed comic relief and the rest of the cast are pretty solid and I will say now that some of the characters who don't have a big role in this film have a bigger role in part 2.

After many moons of digging and more digging I finally ran out of shovels and then I went online and found out that the animation for this film was done by Moi Animation aka the studio that animated Avatar and I have to say that the animation in this film was honestly really good it's not by any means perfect you do get the odd drawing here and there which is to be expected in any movie really but here since the story is so good and so strong it doesn't really take anything away from the film.

I mentioned before how Bruce being old and yet suiting up was in his character and it's so true Bruce Wayne not for one minuet would allow himself any bit of happiness no matter what form it took in fact the only reason why he stopped being Batman for so long was the fact that he's drinking alot. 

If you think back to the very first animated Batman movie we have a series of flashbacks where we see Bruce be happy and in one of those flashbacks he's begging his parents to not keep him to his promise and let him be happy in my mind the same thing is kind of happening here Bruce is happy not being Batman and in this case he's begging the city to let him stay happy but when the city says no you made a promise so keep it that's when he finally suits back up.

I havn't read the original source material so I cannot say if this is a faithful adaptation or not but I can say that as a film the story is really good and as you can no doubt tell by the above picture that iconic cover does appear in the movie and to me that was the only scene in the movie that felt like total fan service it's not a bad scene but if you look at in context of the film you can just tell that it was there for fan service.

I have to mention the awesome Batman reveal to me that was one of the best scenes in the whole movie that whole scene was just so well done (just to make things clear i'm talking about the scene where Batman first comes back not the opening of the movie) everything in that scene made it feel like Batman coming was a big deal which is what it should have done since it is a big deal it was well edited , animated , written and acted I also like the fact that it was a slow build for the vast majority of that scene we barely see Batman in full we either just see certain body parts or it's his shadow.

Rather shockingly there isn't that much action in this movie but what action there is in the movie is really well done this is a UK rated 15 film so you get to see alot of blood in this movie and alot of it comes from Batman himself and that's something you very rarely see in animated media and it always happens after an intense action see which to me says that the action scenes in this movie mean something there not just there to add a bit of excitement they are here to help advance the story.

Overall this is a really solid first part and to me it's one of the few films that does the whole two part film right but tho it does have it's fair share of problems and ironically there the same problems that all first part films have but it's still an enjoyable film in it's own right and it scores an 8 out of 10 from me.