Move over, Commander Cool, Shaggy has a new favorite superhero.
Scooby-Doo Team-Up #9
DC Comics (May, 2015, as appearing in comiXology’s Scooby-Doo Team Up volume 2)
“Truth, Justice, And Scooby Snacks”
WRITER: Sholly Fisch
ARTIST: Dario Brizuela
COLORIST: Franco Riesco
LETTERER: Saida Temofonte
EDITOR: Kristy Quinn
Catch more of these and backstage videos at the Corridor Crew YouTube channel.
The recent passing of Dustin Diamond is a sad thing, but there’s one part in the article I just linked to that’s worth noting:
He played himself in several film and TV productions, and made his way around the C-list reality show circuit to pay the bills. But there may be no better example of an actor being so closely associated with a single role, and it ended up being impossible for him to fully break out of that perception in the public eye.
That is of course his character of Samuel “Screech” Powers, which Diamond played as far back as Good Morning Miss Bliss, the Haley Mills primetime sitcom about a teacher and her students. Diamond, Lark Vorhees (Lisa) and Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zack) also came from that show into Saved By The Bell, moving the show from I think Wisconsin to the fictional California town of Bayside. Only the boys, joined by Mario Lopez (Slater), would continue their roles on The College Years until Tiffany Amber Thiessan (Kelly) returned some point after the pilot and I really started to not like Kelly when she appeared on that show, but that’s another topic. After that show failed Diamond returned to Saved By The Bell: The New Class after a slight revamp playing the assistant principal back at Bayside High. He was not asked to return for the 2020 reboot for NBC’s Peacock network, and there’s some backstage and fan drama attached to that which I also won’t get into here. The show has him going to the International Space Station. It’s a sad thing for Diamond that he didn’t return to the role when he was on every other incarnation of the franchise.
Then again there is one bad part about having been on every other show as the same character, which was brought up in the quote above: Diamond was the victim of typecasting. Outside of some wrestling appearances (I did a search for him in Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wresting and found out he showed up in other wrestling promotions) and the sex tape he later claimed was a body double with his head popped on he couldn’t get any other real work. The casting directors only saw Screech and wouldn’t give him any roles that weren’t variants of that character. Typecasting can kill your career.
The Elders like to watch their citizens on their dates.
Robotech Masters #7
Comico The Comic Company (April, 1986)
“The Trap”
ADAPTATION: Mike Baron
PENCILER: Neil D. Vokes
INKER: Keith Wilson
COLORIST: Tom Vincent
LETTERER: David Cody Weiss
EDITOR: Diana Schutz
No, it’s not about the two American cartoons. They don’t even acknowledge them do they do mention the anime movies.
Catch more Tell It Animated on YouTube.
Godzilla, the 1998 Roland Emmerich movie, is not a fan favorite for fans of the Big G. I do understand why, and yet while the monster deserved the fan name of GINO (Godzilla In Name Only) and the Japanese “Zilla” (minus the “god”) as seen in Godzilla: Final Wars, I still very much enjoy the movie. While Emmerich claimed it was a return to the classic 1960s movie I think it’s more accurate that it resembles an update of the 50s giant monster movies that inspired Ishiro Honda to create the monster. The atomic bomb test more imitates The Beast From 50,000 Fathoms and movies of that kind that how it was treated in either the original Japanese or the US interpretation of the original Godzilla/Godzilla: King Of The Monsters. It’s a fun movie even with the questionable shot at Siskel & Ebert or the fact that it’s an early example of Hollywood not caring about the old source material, which has become the norm out of Lalaland’s theatrical landscape of not-stalgia and mockstalgia. As an original property it actually works.
However, the best defense of the movie is what came out of it. Godzilla: The Series was created for Fox Kids by Adelaide Productions, the same people behind Men In Black: The Series and Jackie Chan Adventures, and while not breaking away from the movie (unlike the aforementioned MIB, which ignored the end of the movie, here they actually continued off of it, using the teaser of a baby Zilla not found by the humans, aka Zilla Junior by fans according to the Godzilla fan wiki) managed to fix most of the movie’s errors.
I have two videos from Godzilla fan and commentary YouTube series Up From The Depths, which I still believe is a reference to that other Godzilla cartoon whose theme song starts with those words. The first discusses just what the Tri-Star produced movie did wrong while agreeing with me that the movie itself isn’t bad, just not Godzilla. The second goes into what the series did right and how it turned Zilla into a monster worth celebrating.
“Well, they didn’t mention this in the Risa travel brochure.”
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy #3
Marvel Comics (February, 1997)
“Loyalty Test”
WRITER: Chris Cooper
PENCILER: John Royle
INKER: Tom Wegrzyn
COLORIST: Kevin Somers
LETTERER: Jim Novak
EDITOR: Bobbie Chase
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
