A collection of holiday specials in a YouTube playlist. These feature short and long Christmas adventures for the whole family.
Catch less Lego-driven Piano Guys performances on their YouTube channel.
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image source: Multiplayer.it by way of TFW2005
The Friday reviews of the many MANY intros of Transformers cartoons in both US and Japan from 1984 to present day is about to reach the period known as the Aligned continuity. This was Hasbro’s attempt to create one unified continuity between cartoons, video games, and comics. (Michael Bay still held the theatrical movies prisoner.) It was around this time that Hasbro decided to unify in-house with Hasbro Studios, and the short-lived team-up with Discovery Kids to form The Hub, a network jointly run by Hasbro and Discovery Networks. The union broke after a few years and the network is back under the parent brand as Discovery Family. Meanwhile you had the games from High Moon Studios and while IDW had their own continuity already going there were comics made in the Aligned continuity.
However, the attempt would hit a few snags during it’s time. I’ll go over more details with each show itself during the intro reviews, since I’ve also used this series as a chance to do a brief overview of the shows themselves while focusing on the intros. This article is just a brief overview, using what I’ve learned from the Transformers Wiki artictle about the grouping (one of the few fan wikis I trust since I know some of the people involved at least tangentially if not personally) about a great idea that almost immediately hit the wall. And given at least one of the people involved and what he’s been screwing up these days it’s not surprising. Dan DiDio’s messing up of Beast Machines wasn’t the only warning our Cybertronian heroes tried to give us. First we should talk about just what the Aligned continuity is.
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“Yes, I helped conquer, experiment on, and torture your people. You can’t take a joke?”
Robotech II: The Sentinels book 2 #4
Eternity Comics (December, 1990)
“The Hunted”
WRITERS: Tom Mason & Chris Ulm
ARTIST: John Waltrip
COVER COLORIST: Paul Mounts
LETTERER: Patrick Owsley
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Ever since an advertisement for a call Santa hotline screwed up and led kids to the predecessor to North American Aerospace Defense Command‘s secret phone number to find out when Santa’s getting to their area NORAD has kept track of Santa Claus’s ride through the midnight skies. There’s a website you can follow his progress on (I don’t know if they got the kinks out of the app but you can still go to the site via the tablet/smartphone’s browser and usually it still works), that also includes new games unlocked during the year, Christmas music, and a few other goodies.
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English: Screenshot of Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in the American film It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). The film lapsed into the public domain in the United States due to the failure of National Telefilm Associates, the last copyright owner, to renew. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It’s A Wonderful Life has become a holiday classic. While it might be due to saturation, it still manages to find an audience and has been homaged, parodied, and ripped off numerous times. That’s when you know you’re work is a classic. But did you know it was based on a short story? Philip Van Doren Stern’s The Greatest Gift came out in 1943, three years before the movie. Like the original Total Recall, which was based on the short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, Frank Capra took the story and built a larger story, changing or adding to that story to make George Baliey’s story work as a full length movie.
So what was changed? The team at CineFix takes a look at both versions of the story with a short synopsis of the differences and similarities between the short story and the feature film.
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And to think this all started with a food fight.
Star Trek #42
DC Comics (September, 1987)
“The Corbomite Effect!”
WRITER: Mike Carlin
PENCILER: Tom Sutton
INKER: Ricardo Villagran
COLORIST: Michele Wolfman
LETTERER: Agustin Mas
EDITOR: Robert Greenberger
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It’s not only cable/satellite, and movie theaters competing against streaming services. Home video has also been affected. Rental stores all but disappeared when Netflix rose up and numerous subscription, ad-based, and hybrid services are popping up to challenge them. So how are DVD and Blu-Rays trying to convince people physical media still has a place? Variety takes a look at how the home video market is solving that issue. Personally I find there are benefits to having options off the grid.
