Animaniacs Tribute

2010-08-16 / hsoi

This is pretty cool. A 3-part video interviewing numerous key people in the production of the Animaniacs cartoon.

I love cartoons, and Animaniacs was one of the best cartoons of “the modern era”. It was funny, witty, irreverent (as much as they could be), lots of adult humor but not rated-R humor yet the kids could still get it. Slapstick comedy, just weird stuff (Chicken Boo), classic and modern references, and just some zany off the wall random stuff. Songs like “Lake Titicaca” which had no other point than “we like saying the words ‘titty’ and ‘caca'” — so wonderfully childish. The Wheel of Morality, which made fun of lots of things. The list goes on. It was such a joy of a cartoon.

I’m still watching my way through the videos. I did enjoy hearing the writers saying they had a lot of freedom and very little oversight. It shows. Often that’s how the best things are made: you get good, talented people and let them do their thing. You give them as much freedom and as little oversight as possible, and don’t filter or edit their creation down to a mere shell of the original.

Do Butterflies Poop?

2010-08-162010-08-15 / hsoi / 1 Comment

No.

(Source: Henry Doorly Zoo, Butterfly exhibit)

Texas Women

2010-08-102010-08-08 / hsoi

Hank Williams, Jr. wrote a song about Texas Women:

and I have to agree.

Any time I leave Texas, like last week when I was in Nebraska, I observe what’s around me. And sure, I see lots of pretty women. But they just can’t hold a candle to Texas women.

I’ve had many a discussion with other folk (including Wife, native Texans, and non-Texans) about this phenomena, and they all agree. There’s just something about how they grow ’em down here. 🙂

God Blessed Texas. 🙂

Construction blues

2010-08-07 / hsoi / 6 Comments

Dear Oklahoma:

Your road system. Why must all of it be under construction at the same time?

In the future, please consider the notion of “staggering”.

Thank you.

– John

🙂

They call it a holster…

2010-07-17 / hsoi

…but it doesn’t “holst”.

Sorry… lame twist on a joke/line from “The Critic“. Extra brownie points to you if you get the reference.

Tired arms

2010-07-14 / hsoi

Laugh tracks on cartoons.

Drawn live before a studio audience, I guess. 🙂

Top Shot? I don’t care

2010-07-13 / hsoi / 7 Comments

So SaysUncle bemoans the Internet for spoiling the ending of the latest Top Shot episode. I’m sure he’s half-joking but also half-serious.

For me? I have no idea what happened or how it ended.

And I don’t care. Well, that’s not totally true. Fellow gunblogger Caleb Giddings was on that show and due to that I was mildly interested. Since someone in Uncle’s comments mentioned Caleb I wondered if he got eliminated. Seems he did. I watched his exit interview and I must say, Caleb left with class and grace.

I really don’t care for reality television and all the “reality competition” shows (a la “Survivor”). Oh sure, I thought this show might be nice for the mainstream to see that gun people can be normal folks, so I support it. And I did watch one episode a week or two ago just because I was flipping channels, it was on, so I figured I should finally see what all the hubbub was about.

And it just made me groan.

It’s the same old crap, with high school-level drama and childishness, because we need turmoil and conflict. Whine whine whine, cut to shot of a one-on-one interview of that person giving their “I don’t like the whiner” commentary to build conflicts. In-fighting. Backstabbing. Childishness. The biggest douchebags get the most TV time and the guys getting no camera time are probably just nice guys (but there’s no TV drama in being a nice guy). And of course, very little time was actually focused on shooting. Figures. I do think the shooting stuff was kinda cool… I liked the long bow work and then how they worked the elimination competition (with the crossbows), that was kinda cool. And I did also catch that one elimination where they did the shooting off the zip line. So the shooting events seem neat, but all the rest? feh. I’ve got better ways to spend my time than watching this “reality” stuff.

But you know, maybe it’s not too far off the mark. It does show people shooting, it does show some cool marksmanship stuff. And it does show that gunnies are normal folk: we’re just as subject to drama and childishness as everyone else. 🙂