I’ve got one more physical comic that isn’t Ninja Turtle or Sonic The Hedgehog related and then I need to figure out what’s going up on Fridays. Meanwhile we have another installment of the Many, MANY Intros of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Chapter By Chapter review of Batman: Knightfall to deliver. Plus, Professor Doc has added a bit of previously unwatchable footage to his collection of the lost Power Masters pilot. No audio and sped up a bit but if you haven’t seen the show before, I wrote an article about when all that could be found was the intro, and this Saturday Night Showcase is a good way to learn about this not-Transformers series.
Have a great week, everyone! Now what do I do for next Friday?
Based on the 1949 novel by Robert Heinlein, the guy behind Starship Troopers, Red Planet is a three episode miniseries that aired on Fox Kids Saturday Morning lineup in 1994. Set on the colony of New Ares (just plain old Mars in the original novel), the story follows two kids, Jim and PJ Marlowe, who are part of a mining colony run by an organization only referred to as “The Company”. They’re mining a rather important ore (the reason why is never stated and is basically a McGuffin anyway) but the miners are getting sick. The kids’ mother, the local doctor, wants to shut the mines down to investigate but the Company’s liaison, only referred to as “The General” (I’m seeing what’s referred to as “a pattern”), wants the mines open no matter who gets hurt in the process.
New Ares is a desert death trap, thanks to the sand beasts and “water seekers” running around but there’s another lifeform on the planet, and Jim makes friends with him, naming him “Willis”. Together, the kids and their parents must overcome the Company’s actions before the mining colony is destroyed…but Willis isn’t the only native involved. Enjoy!
Of all the villains between Fox and Holyoke they could have gone with…WHY THIS JACKASS?!?!?!?!!?
The Blue Beetle #19
Holyoke Publishing (March, 1943)
No, seriously, why him? You only have two Blue Beetle stories this issue for some reason (it’s his comic) and you waste one on Dascomb Dinsmore? Really?
On the upside, no Likkity Split and no wishing kid. As mentioned, only two Blue Beetle stories so his third story has been replaced with a reprint from another comics. Were they slowly pulling Blue Beetle out of his own comic book? Considering how things went with comic names and numbering back in the Golden Age I wouldn’t put it past them.
We’ll see how long THIS remains up. I just had to RE-re-do the first CBS intro. For crying out loud, Paramount, it’s easier to get Japan to allow us to promote their shows than it is this one. The moment they announce…eh, I already went over this. Let’s get back track…IF I’M ALLOWED TO, NICKELODEON!
So if it’s still up there, this is the Japanese intro to the original Ninja Turtle cartoon. I don’t know if they changed the lyrics or just translated them. The music is the same, but now April has a line I guess. The show was big around the world and it’s not surprising that the home of ninjutsu took a shine to it. So much so that when the series ended they took it upon themselves to do a two episode Original Video Animation (what Japan calls direct-to-video but I don’t call it an OVA the otakus who didn’t learn reproductive terms freak out) duo of adventures based on the Super Turtles, or rather Supermutants.
Created to refresh the toyline and give Playmates early access to the 90s, The “Supermutants” were jacked up versions of the Turtles and Shredder and his goons. They never made it to the US show, as the “red sky” seasons just gave us unstable mutations that turned the heroes into monstrous forms whenever the plot could best mess with them. That subplot was never resolved before the series ended.
Mutant Turtles: Legend Of The Supermutants (or ミュータント タートルズ 超人伝説編, Myūtanto Tātoruzu Chōjin Densetsuhen; lit. “Mutant Turtles: Superman Legend” if you’re that nitpicky person that made me copy/paste all that from the Turtles wiki) is a show with an…interesting plot. I can’t do it justice in this article so I encourage you to check into it. The short version is that the Turtles find a shrine built on Earth by the Neutrinos…which raises a whole bunch of questions like “why would a race of happy punk pacifist teenagers from a war-loving dimension who talk like the 1950s just started over there build a temple on Earth?”, but I digress. In the temple they find a fairy named Kris Mu who gives them powerful Mutastones that not only turns them into the Super Turtles but allows them to temporarily combine into one being, the Saint Turtle, for I think 60 seconds. Meanwhile Shredder, BeBop, and Rocksteady get their hands on Dark Mutastones thanks to an evil fairy named Dark Mu (why not) that turns them into various creature-based armor. I think everyone gets more armor in the second episode to promote one of the other Playmates refresh attempts that didn’t make the show. Seriously, look this thing up some time. I’m just here to talk intros and we’re overdue to start on this one.
All this time we were worried because of how long it was stalled despite being done, and WBD’s current questionable activities when it comes to cartoons not on Discovery Family or Cartoon Network, and yet the rumored not coming out Scooby/Krypto team-up IS coming out! Now we just need a proper Dynomutt and Ace The Bathound team-up with both Scooby and Krypto and the world will be a better place.
I already know what some people reading this are going to say. I’ll be accused of not growing up, or having Peter Pan Syndrome, or some other crap. “You’re 50 years old (though you don’t look it)! Why are you watching superhero shows for five-year-olds? You should watch the stuff made for your age group and like it!”
Oh, you mean the shows that never heard of primary colors or sunlight? The ones where everyone are angsty and brooding revenge seekers? The ones that try to NOT be a superhero show whenever possible? One that couldn’t care less about getting anything right about the source material? If I were going to watch superhero shows for grown-ups I’d go back to the 1970s to maybe mid 1990s, when superhero shows for grown-ups were superhero shows. Or maybe go father back and watch the ones for older kids, a demographic that today has no superhero shows unless you count Power Rangers, which is moving to Netflix and thus will probably lose a bunch of audience, and the Lauren Faust version of DC Superhero Girls, which is just Friendship Is Magic with characters better done by Shea Fontana. No offense to Faust but you should have made Super Best Friends Forever again because that looked less like you were ripping yourself off…not that I’d be surprised if that’s just what Cartoon Network asked for because they ain’t too bright up in the CN offices lately.
Look, I have my limits when it comes to kids TV. Don’t even try to get me to watch Cocomelon or anything involving baby sharks (I have somehow managed to avoid the full version of that song for years) because even I can’t deal with those shows. However, my philosophy has always been “a good story is where you find it”, and demographics will not decide what’s “made for me”. I refer you to the previous mention of Shea Fontana’s version of DC Superhero Girls or the numerous articles mentioning Paw Patrol and other Nick Jr and Disney Jr shows. I’m also not the only adult watching Bluey despite not having kids because it’s a well-written show for kids and their parents. You think “Fairytale”, the episode where Bandit tells his daughters about growing up in the 1980s didn’t have parents in mind?
I therefore present the following commentary: that kids are getting better superhero shows than adults are, or rather preschool and early elementary school kids are because the older kids are getting diddly squat right now. I don’t expect adult superhero stories to become exactly like them because then they’d be kids shows. That said, there are reasons I prefer to watch these younger shows, and there are lessons “adult” superhero shows could take from them.
BW Media Spotlight 