45 “Kids Will Never Know the Struggle”s

Kids today have it so easy! Here are 45 struggles from the old days that today’s kids will never understand






1.Old school cell/cordless phones

Five Things I liked in Santa Clause 3:The Escape Clause

And now for a challenge. As you guys know, I kike to take a bad movie and find good things about it. Since it’s Christmas, I knew the perfect choice for this. The problem? I really hate this one. But can I find five positives anyway? Let’s discuss:

 

I heard Tim Allen say that he was going to make this on The Tonight Show and my reaction was, what the heck is the plot going to be? Twelve years after the first movie, we got this unnecessary sequel, The second movie managed a premise that made sense. Enough sense anyway. This one was pushing things but to be honest, I was in on the premise. It sounded like a neat idea. Santa gets disgruntled and wonders if he should have ever become Santa at all. Ok, not original but it had promise.  It didn’t work out quite that way,

The Sets

With the stupid Canada joke we get a good look at the sets for the north pole here,and they are very well done. Of course the Hall of Snow Globes is amazing, and they did a real good job changing the set in the alternate tine lime so that it almost doesn’t even look like the same place.

Top 10 Home Improvement Christmas Episodes

I love Christmas episodes and some series really go above and beyond, like this one…







The reason I am focusing on this show is that it did something which was kind of unqiue. It managed a Christmas episode every single year. I was going to say this was the only show that did that, but there are a few others that did especially “The Middle” which I never watched. I thought it would be fun to go over these episodes and see which was better. Oh you may be wondering, if Home Improvement had 8 seasons how can this be a top 10? I’ll explain the two honorary episodes as we go.

 

#10.”No Place Like Home” (Season 6)

Ok ok, I have talked about this episode before and how awful it is. And not just as a Christmas episode either, it’s one of the worst episodes of the series. I honestly think they threw the Christmas elements in there because felt they needed a Christmas episode again. Even though Christmas is barely in it and it has none of the elements that make the other Christmas episodes so memorable. I think they meant the Thanksgiving episode that year to be the official Christmas episode in heart, since that episode mentioned the lighting contest and had a tribute to the old Rankin/Bass stop motion shows.

Christmas Movie Anniversaries in 2019

I spent a lot of time this year discussing some big anniversaries that happened to be this year. One area I missed was Christmas movies. And believe it or not, a few have notable anniversaries in 2019.


Let’s run them down:




Christmas with the Kranks-15th

Ok this isn’t the best Christmas movie ever made, by far!, but it’s still worth a mention. Where many films fade away (anyone remember Deck the Halls?) this one has managed to stay alive in people’s thoughts. Maybe because it starts Tim Allen? Flawed, but not as jaded as some other movies that have come out in the last 15 years that were really detestable.

Ten Memorable Coca-Cola Christmas Commercials

12 Movies About Santa’s Extended Family

Disney+, yes I have it too, has a new movie coming out with Anna Kensrick about Santa’s daughter. When Santa’s son disappears before he’s supposed to take over, she has to find him. Nice idea but…Wait a minute, when did he have children?? Yeah for about twenty years now creators have realized that they have done all the stories they could about our favorite man in red. Where to go next? His family of course!






One of the first was in the 90’s. CBS had a TV movie about Mrs. Santa Claus which was so boring it put me in a coma. And of course Santa Claus 3 had a plotline about Santa having a child, who we didn’t see until the very end. I can’t figure out exactly when it was but at some point people must have started to wonder, what if Santa had kids? Or even a brother or sister? And these days there quite a few movies out there abut that very thing. For some reason we just put aside how disturbing the idea of Santa having sex is, and accept the premise. I guess I gotta admire creators coming with something different, but like everything else Christmas related it’s been done to DEATH at this point. Are any of these good? Let’s check them out. And one rule here is that the Santa in the movie has to be the “real” Santa.







Fred Claus

This wasn’t the first, by any means, but I figured since it was one of the few that wasn’t made for TV I would mention it first. There are these two brothers, Fred is the troublemaker and Nicholas is the saint. And, well, hijinks. This isn’t considered a great movie, although Paul Giamatti does a fair job as Santa, and I’d be lying if I said I’d even seen it. From what I’ve heard I think I’ll keep it that way.

12 Favorite Product Placements in “Friends”

So I talked last time about how movies use product placements. Some worst than others. But with TV shows, this is not as common. Usually if you see a familiar product creators will block out a part of the product name so that they don’t have to pay royalties to anyone. One show that did not do this was…








Yeah Friends was awful with their product placements. Somethings are easy to ignore, like the characters drinking Poland Springs water. Others are more, obvious. I’d be here all day if I did a run down of all of them, so instead here are some of the more obnoxious one’s.






Operation (The One with the Candy Hearts)

An early but still worth a mention I think. They never even play the game.

10 Favorite Product Placements in Movies

I’ve said before that I don’t mind product placement so much. It makes sense, the product pays money for an appearance so why not? If it’s used wisely and not overdone. For example there is a scene in Santa Clause 2 where the family comes home with McDonald’s. Ok that’s clearly product placement, but I can believe they stopped for McDonald’s on the way home and it doesn’t hurt the scene so..who cares? How about Reese’s Pieces in E.T.? That was so subtle that M&M’s tried to insist that it was really there candy (it should have been, they blew it) but the bag is clearly seen in one shot. Not only it is used to advance the plot it’s done very simply.

 

 

 

 

I really don’t get why it bothers people so much, to me it makes the movie more real to have someone drinking a can of Coke rather than a can that just says “Soda” or something. Can it be used badly? Sure. For example in the movie Garfield not only was there a ton of it but they put the product placement in stupid places that made no sense. Like a toy train set with ads for Pepsi on it. Huh?

And I could be wrong but I think Petco was a sponsor too. To much! But if it’s used right, I have no problem with it. So here are some of my favorite examples of product placements in movies, because they are just so obvious!







Mac & Me

I never understood why this movie has such a close connection with McDonald’s. At first I thought it was part of the story. But no, it’s just there. I mean it’s not as if E.T. stopped for five minutes for a Reese’s Pieces song so why is going on here? Someone explain this to me!

A Look at Star Wars Merchandise & Memorabilia

I’ve done a few articles going over carious merchandise that has spawned from popular franchises. One franchise I haven’t talked about is one of the merchandise monsters, Star Wars!

You cold argue Star Wars is what really started the memorabilia craze, or at the very least is one of the first to make adult’s just as excited as kids for toys, games, etc. Unlike others I talked about here, I didn’t have a tremendous amount of Star Wars stuff, so this is just an overview of what’s been out there. Star Wars merchandise is so huge it gets down right insane at times



Yeah, good example. WTF??







TOYS
  OK OK…I’ve talked abut the Kenner action figures and toys I had growing up to death, we all know there is nothing more profitable from this franchise than toys and action figures. So we’ll cover some other items of interest

Five Animated Adaptations Focused on Humans

Well I looked at the Sonic trailer, with the improved effects, and it looks like they did it again. Rather than a movie about Sonic and his universe, he’s going to be tossed into the real world for hi jinks. Why does this keep happening? What makes people think we want to see a movie about a franchise we love where the focus is on humans on Earth? It wouldn’t be so bad, maybe, if they took the characters out of their world but it gets worst when the focus goes from the characters we love to humans who couldn’t care less about.

 

Human-Focused Adaptation is a TV Trope where an adapation of an animated series inexplicably becomes focused on humans. Usually the animated characters are transported to Earth and for some inexplicable reason the focus of the movie becomes the humans rather than the characters we wanted to see. This is a strange phenomenon in movies which I will never understand. And these are almost always awful. Oh sometimes it’s not so bad. Alvin and the Chipmunks was focus on Alvin, Simon and Theodore. Fat Albert had the characters coming into the real world but the focus stayed on them. And as bad as the Scooby Doo movies were at least the focus was on our five heroes. And of course we had The Muppets where Jason Segel  and Amy Adams took some of the spotlight, but not enough to ruin the movie or take attention of the Muppets.


Most however, are not so lucky. Here are some examples :






The Smurfs

Tell me if you’ve heard this one..classic cartoon characters are transported to modern day New York City where hilarious hi jinks ensue. Groan! The plot becomes about Neil Patrick Harris and his worrying about being a father. Who cares?? Why New York? Like we never see that city in movies. Especially when The Smurfs world was fleshed out really well. But that isn’t the worst part. They actually had a sequel. A real chance to stay in the Smurf’s world and explore it. And you know what the sequel did? THE SAME DAMN THING AS THE FIRST!

Top 8 Everybody Loves Raymond Thanksgiving Episodes

Every year as Thanksgiving rolls around I do a special sitcom article. Either a review of a single Thanksgiving episode, or an overview on an entire run of Thanksgiving episodes from a specific series. This year I decided to focus on Everybody Loves Raymond since they had a Thanksgiving show almost every year. Just like my Friends article last year, since I already reviewed the series there is no need for an in depth look at these episodes. This is a ranking. ELR Thanksgiving episodes were usually special, but which episode was better?

#8.”No Thanks”

This is actually a classic episode, when Debra tries to one up Marie by showing that her little insults don’t bother her. Leading to one of the best Marie/Debra scenes in the series. So if it’s so classic why so high? Because it’s a Thanksgiving episode for maybe three minutes.

Top 10 Favorite “Post-Diane” Cheers Episodes (and Five I Hate)

For a lot of people, Cheers ended the time that Shelly Long left for the final time. And that’s fair, but for me the show didn’t really get started until Kirstie Alley walked through the door. No, I’m not saying Alley is so amazing that she saved the show. But when the Sam/Diane stuff was gone it meant that the rest of the cast were brought up and used more. I love the episodes after Diane left.

As an experiment of sorts I went back and watched every episode from that first one that began Season six. I wanted to catch up on what I had missed (I never watched regularly) and see what I had forgotten. And I discovered on simple thing–man this show is funny! And well written! It’s no shock it lasted as long as it did. So here are my ten favorite episodes from that era on the show. And since no show is perfect, we’ll do a few I hated also.



#10.One for the Road

The series finale and I did a whole article on it so feel free to find out mote there. I think the series finale, while not perfect, went out on a high note.

Five Things I Liked in “Galaxy Quest”

20 years ago a little movie called Galaxy Quest came out, and wasn’t a big hit. But over the years it had developed a bit of a following. And I gotta be honest, I love this movie. I’ve seen it a bunch of times. What is it about this movie that works so well? Let’s see!

 

If you don’t know, Galaxy Quest was a take on “Star Trek”. And in the movie, real aliens seek out he “crew” because they foolishly believe the footage they intercepted was actual footage and not just entertainment. Usually I find things to pick on good movies,  but since it’s the 20th anniversary let’s share a little love instead.


Quotable

There are some great lines in this movie, like my favorite “Never give up! Never surrender!” Then of course we have the line that Alan Rickman’s character has had to live with whether he wanted to or not. “By Grabthar’s hammer, by the suns of Worvan, you shall be avenged”. It’s no “Live Long and Prosper” but still…..

A Look at Filmation Classic Cartoon’s

Well I discussed Hannah Barbera it’s only fair to finally give some love to Filmation.

Founded in 1962 by Lou Scheimer, Hal Sutherland, and Norm Prescott the company produced some great, and not so great, cartoons for over thirty years. Before they went defunct in 1989. I mentioned one a few weeks ago, The Tarzan, Lone Rangers, Zorro Adventure Hour was three Filmation productions mashed into one. What else did they produce? A LOT!!!

 

This is not a “top 10” or a “favorite” list, just an overview. The reason for that is while Filmation was a great company, it never really rose Hannah Barbera levels and most its cartoons are remembered for being, silly. Well animated perhaps, but silly. This is because they were more interested in turning out material than they were making quality. So you’ll notice similar animation styles and stock animation used in a LOT in their programs. And speaking of those programs, here are some noteworthy examples:




The New Adventures of Superman

One of the first Superman cartoons after the Fleischer days and they borrowed heavily from them. There was a Superboy cartoon also.

Top 10 Favorite Looney Tunes Characters

If you’ve read my stuff you may have noticed one franchise I hardly talk about. Looney Tunes! Not that I didn’t watch these growing up, but for some reason I was never crazy about them like others. Nevertheless, these characters (animated by legend Chuck Jones and mostly voiced by Mel Blanc) are so popular and so beloved that even if you never watched the cartoons, you know who they are. So since I did my ten favorite Hanna Barbera characters a few weeks ago, I decided it was time to give a little love to another animation legend.

 

Of course ten doesn’t even scratch the surface, so don’t think if I leave off your favorite it means I don’t like them.



#10.Michigan J Frog

As I said I didn’t watch Looney Tunes exclusively, but one of my favorite cartoons ever has to be One Froggy Evening, which is the one and only appearance of Michigan J Frog. It’s a brilliant cartoon with no dialogue, aside from the ragtime music, and a wonderful payoff. The character may have only appeared once, but he endures. So much so he was made the mascot of the WB network back in the day.

Five Comic Book Mashup’s

So last time I talked about how, in order to boost the ratings of a struggling show, two or more cartoon series will be combined to form an “hour” or program block. But this happens in other media too, like comic books! One example is when Batman founded The Outsiders but that doesn't really count as a mash up since the series began with that name.


 



Here five examples of two comic series being thrown together to boost sales. Does it work? Not really.






Atom & Hawkman

When the sales for Atom and Hawkman were struggling the titles were combined. It managed seven issues with separate stories and team-up’s alternating. I came across one or two issues in the day and they were pretty dull







Green Lantern/Green Arrow

Now this one, was something special! Brought into help the Green Lantern book, Green Arrow added a spark to the series. But the stories presented in these issues were groundbreaking. They tackled social concerns and featured to heroes who were very different in terms of political viewpoints. This is the series that tackled over population, racism, and even made Speedy a heroin addict! Dennis O’Neil really raised the bar with these, sadly the sales numbers did not go up.








Superboy Starring The Legion of Superheroes

The Legion were introduced in a classic Superboy story in the pages of Adventure Comics. After that they both existed in Adventure Comics for several years. Eventually the Superboy got his own solo book which after awhile was renamed “Superboy Starring the Legion of Superheroes” when creators drcided to add the Legion. Superboy then left the book and the team carried on, the title dropping Superboy entirely. This may be a rare time when a book was taken over successfully by supporting characters! And the Legion of Superheroes continued on very successfully after that. Superboy would get his own title again later but that’s another story.









Power Man & Iron Fist

A Marvel example? Madness!! Yup when Power Man and Iron Fist’s own series were struggling it was decided to combine them into one. The series actually had a healthy life after that, until the final issue when Iron Fist was inexplicably killed off.










Batgirl and the Birds of Prey

I’m not gonna lie, I don’t get this one. I guess Batgirl was brought back after The New 52, so her connection to The Birds of Prey was kinda confusing. She was originally a member as Oracle. Who does exist in the Rebith era, kinda…Sorta. But yeah for some reason Batgirl isn’t one of the Birds of Prey but she does work with the team. The series lasted about two years.





That was all I could find, which was a surprise I figured there would be more. If I missed an example comment and let me know.

Ten Saturday Morning Cartoon Mashup’s

Wanted to discuss a particular part of Saturday Morning Cartoon’s which has always fascinated me. When a show is mashed up with another show to form a full “hour”. Usually this is a transparent attempt to bolster one not so popular show with another. Or to make re-runs look like new material. One that really worked was “Garfield & Friends” which featured U.S. Acres segments in between Garfield cartoons. I was annoyed at this when the show premiered but I came to be fond of U.S.Acres, which was another Jim Davis strip.

But for every “Garfield and Friends” you get odd blending like “Pinky and the Brain and Elmira”. I mean what the heck was that about? Here are ten classic examples of two (or more) shows being packaged together to form one.




The Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/Fonz Hour
Why has no ever done a comprehensive look at this craziness? Ok, first we had Fonz an the Happy Days Gang, where the Happy Days gang go time traveling (I am serious!). So that prompted another show, Laverne & Shirley Go to the Army. At least this one was a little grounded in reality. Fonzie was later added to L&S, and that show was blended with the new Mork & Mindy cartoon to make a full hour. Got that? There will be a quiz at end.

Memorable TV Line-Up’s:NBC Monday Night (Fall 1997)

So I’ve done a few of these now, talking about lineup’s that were so solid and strong that people still talk about them today! But I got to thinking, has the opposite ever happened? Has a network ever done a lineup so bad that people never forget them? And I don’t mean the early days of FOX or the WB when they were struggling and put anything on. I mean one of the big network’s just flat out giving up and producing a line up which even they had to know, NO ONE WOULD WATCH. Well, I dug and found a line up that makes a good example. From NBC in 1997.

 

As I’ve said NBC was on top of the world in the 80’s and 90’s. They were solid on Monday’s with Alf, Hogan Family and later The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Blossom– until 1996. When Fresh Prince ended NBC was determined to keep Monday a “must see TV night” for comedy. The 1996 lineup was so lame I wont even dignify it. So in 1997 they decided to take their crappy “time slot hits” (you know, shows that were only successful because they aired opposite Seinfeld or Friends) and give them a night all of their own. The result? You can probably guess!

8:00
Suddenly Susan

I’ve discussed this before, probably more than it deserves. This is the Brooke Shields show which struggled to find an identity. First it was about a magazine writer who was suddenly single. Then in the second season she had a nemesis and a love interest. The third season saw such a dramatic retooling that it lost its audience very fast. The supporting cast was ok but the writing was never there.

Ten Star Trek Characters That Were Transformed

Halloween is a great time to dress up and pretend to be something else, very often a monster or creature. This brings to mind all the time’s on Star Trek when a main character gets transformed into some kind of creature. It’s usually a strange disease, which of course is cured in the end and all is well, and other times it's a done surgically. And while these episodes are usually silly, at best, you gotta admire the special effects which turn a lovable character into a true alien!





Kirk (The Enterprise Incident)

And I couldn’t come up with a classic series example. Except maybe for when the crew were aged. I always liked this one where Kirk was surgically altered to be a Romulus. It doesn’t exactly count but this happened a few more times (as we’ll see) so may as well add it. If I am forgetting one please let me know!







Picard (Best of Both World’s)

One of the most shocking transformations ever on Trek has to be when Picard was assimilated by The Borg. As Locutus he was just plain, scary.

The Best & Worst Star Trek-TNG Character Episodes

Any good ensemble series will have several episodes devoted to its various characters. Course, that wasn’t the rule as much in the old days when “supporting characters” did just that. They had a few lines and that was it. I guess people didn’t think audiences cared that much about the supporting characters. Take the classic Trek, where none of the other cast members had episodes revolved around them, just Kirk and Spock. Scotty sorta had one, in “Wolf in the Fold”. And McCoy kinda had one, in “The World is Hollow”. But that was it. So it would be pretty hard to do an article like this for that show.






As time went on creators realized fans wanted to see the “supporting characters” get the spotlight once in awhile. And series started to reflect that by having episodes where other characters were the focus once in awhile. This gave us a chance to not only spend some time with the characters, but learn a little more about them too. And by the time The Next Generation came around, that was the policy. Everyone got at least one episode a season where they were the focus. Some were good, others not. But I was wondering, which were the best?




So these don’t have the best episodes of the series, just the strongest episode for the particular character. The criteria here is more than just the actor getting a lot to do. It needs to be an episode that explores the character, and maybe even shows a side of them we’ve never seen. And since they can’t all be good, very briefly will mention what I think is the worst. And I can’t stress enoygh, this is all just my opinion. Here’s what I came up with:




Picard-“Tapestry”

Tough to choose between this and “Inner Light”. That episode is fantastic, but I decided Tapestry was better in this instance for one simple reason. In Inner Light, Picard is living another man’s life. In Tapestry, it’s his own life being examined. And thanks to Q, he learns just how important those early experiences were in making him who he is today. It seems most Picard episodes are snore fests involving his love life. This is different and very well written script.

WORST-“Lessons”, dull and stupid

Top 10 Favorite Hanna-Barbera Characters

A lot of people say Disney or Looney Tunes ruled their childhood. Others say Fox Kids or Kids WB. For me? It had to be Hanna-Barbera!

 

Founded in 1957 by creators and former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the studo lasted for decades giving us iconic characters we all know that will be around forever. The studio closed in 2001 and the properties were absorbed by Warner Bros, but we not gea to discuss that. We’re here to celebrate the amazing characters created over fifty years.

One of the best rides was ever on was the Hanna Barbara ride in Universal Studios. It isn’t there anymore, but the clip is on YouTube. I loved it, I was smiling the whole ride! So let’s run down the 10 favorite characters. And yes lots will be missing here like Birdman (who liked that?), Popeye (not a H&B creation), and Top Cat. Because no one remembers Top Cat (just kidding),






#10.Tom and Jerry

I seriously forgot they were created by Hanna and Barbera. I guess when H&B left MGM they took these two with them. It was classic cartoon slapstick and we loved every crash and scream of AARRRGHHH!! These classic cartoons are great examples of how strong H&B’s animation was. True they are still around, being shoehorned into other franchises, but the classic cartoons will always be the best.

Top 10 Best Hershey Products

When Halloween comes around, a lot of things get discussed. We think of costumes, scary monsters, and of course Halloween TV and movies. But there is one thing that gets a lot of attention on Halloween that no one ever talks about–CANDY!

 

For me, Hershey is king. I love Hershey Bars and I have been to Hershey PA more than a few times. I spent a lot of time discussing anniversaries this year, and well there is a candy related one I couldn’t ignore. Hershey was created in 1894 making this year the 125th anniversary of the company. Founded by Milton Hershey the company is one of the largest chocolate manufactures in the world. They have made a ton of items over the years, some of course purchased by other companies, and in honor of both Halloween and the 125th anniversary, I present the 10 best. So only one variety per product, or this list would be all Hershey bars. And since it’s too obvious, the classic Hershey bar is off the table. That’s a given (I adore them)! And no, ice cream will not be in on here because its gross. And yes, non chocolate counts!

#10.Almond Joy/Mounds

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t! Almond Joy has nuts. Mounds don’t. One of the best ads in the 80’s made it very clear which candy was which, so simple and effective. To bad the candy is coconut or I’d eat it