The Lookback : Phantom Investigators

The Flashback  Cartoons Kids WB

    We don't write enough about the 2000's.  Back into our safety zone with cartoons, but hey why not?   But continuing with a theme of short lived series , this one is an interesting case.  The series we look at today is from  Kids WB called Phantom Investigators. (get it ? P I ) The series ran for 13 episodes in 2002 then it wasn't renewed. (More on that later)

      If you have seen the  Nickelodeon series "Kablam" you may have seen a featured cartoon segment called "Life with Loopy".  The cartoon used  a mixture of mediums , so it used cardboard and puppetry with stop motion and hand drawing. .

     It was one of the main long lasting Kablam shorts that pretty much lasted the show's entire run.  It never reached it's own  series though.      Life with Loopy was created by Stephen Holman who also created a segment for Liquid Television  called Joe Normal. 

  You can see he had a style.  Copyright MTV (We guess) 

      If we are going in order of appearance ,  Joe started then it was Loopy.   Anyway we aren't really talking about either of  these, but they give us a glimpse of what we are talking about today.   In  May of 2002, Kids WB added a new series to their Saturday Morning line up , it also probably aired on weekdays , but who knows? 

       The show is about 4 middle schoolers, 3 of them have powers and 1 doesn't. (Guess which one is the leader of the group?)  Named Daemona, Jericho, Casey, and Kira.    As stated before, 3 of the characters have a power.  Jericho has the power of telekinetic powers , Casey can morph into things , and Kira has telepathic powers. (mind powers, mind powers).  

They spend their days investigating things that happen in their town.  (those meddling kids.)  One episode has them investigating a ghost haunting at house.   Meanwhile, episodes will have a sub plot of a character or more having a problem they need to solve.    

      Making  a point of that it has the same creator as Life with Loopy you see the same style  used here.  There's that use of cardboard and puppetry gives the show a 3D feel while in a 2D world. 

copyright Sony 

   Wouldn't be surprised if they actually burned the paper./

     Of course the show features phantoms and other spookies and they use their style to their maximum with them. 

Well, I am scared

Since he is dead he can take off his head. 

          

 For  fun we are going to take a look at an episode directly. In this case episode 8 , "Were-Dog"

after the jump. 

90th Oscars Nomination list

The Oscars 

     The nominations for the 90th Academy Awards have been announced, the awards show airs March 4th at 8pmET on ABC.

Here are the nominations.


Best Picture:

“Call Me by Your Name”
“Darkest Hour”
“Dunkirk”
“Get Out”
“Lady Bird”
“Phantom Thread”
“The Post”
“The Shape of Water”
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

Lead Actor:

Timothée Chalamet, “Call Me by Your Name”
Daniel Day-Lewis, “Phantom Thread”
Daniel Kaluuya, “Get Out”
Gary Oldman, “Darkest Hour”
Denzel Washington, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.”

Lead Actress:

Sally Hawkins, “The Shape of Water”
Frances McDormand, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Margot Robbie, “I, Tonya”
Saoirse Ronan, “Lady Bird”
Meryl Streep, “The Post”


Supporting Actor:

Willem Dafoe, “The Florida Project”
Woody Harrelson, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Richard Jenkins, “The Shape of Water”
Christopher Plummer, “All the Money in the World”
Sam Rockwell, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

Supporting Actress:

Mary J. Blige, “Mudbound”
Allison Janney, “I, Tonya”
Lesley Manville, “Phantom Thread”
Laurie Metcalf, “Lady Bird”
Octavia Spencer, “The Shape of Water”

Director:

“Dunkirk,” Christopher Nolan
“Get Out,” Jordan Peele
“Lady Bird,” Greta Gerwig
“Phantom Thread,” Paul Thomas Anderson
“The Shape of Water,” Guillermo del Toro

Animated Feature:

“The Boss Baby,” Tom McGrath, Ramsey Ann Naito
“The Breadwinner,” Nora Twomey, Anthony Leo
“Coco,” Lee Unkrich, Darla K. Anderson
“Ferdinand,” Carlos Saldanha
“Loving Vincent,” Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman, Sean Bobbitt, Ivan Mactaggart, Hugh Welchman

Animated Short:

“Dear Basketball,” Glen Keane, Kobe Bryant
“Garden Party,” Victor Caire, Gabriel Grapperon
“Lou,” Dave Mullins, Dana Murray
“Negative Space,” Max Porter, Ru Kuwahata
“Revolting Rhymes,” Jakob Schuh, Jan Lachauer

Adapted Screenplay:

“Call Me by Your Name,” James Ivory
“The Disaster Artist,” Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
“Logan,” Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green
“Molly’s Game,” Aaron Sorkin
“Mudbound,” Virgil Williams and Dee Rees

Original Screenplay:

“The Big Sick,” Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani
“Get Out,” Jordan Peele
“Lady Bird,” Greta Gerwig
“The Shape of Water,” Guillermo del Toro, Vanessa Taylor
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” Martin McDonagh

Cinematography:

“Blade Runner 2049,” Roger Deakins
“Darkest Hour,” Bruno Delbonnel
“Dunkirk,” Hoyte van Hoytema
“Mudbound,” Rachel Morrison
“The Shape of Water,” Dan Laustsen

Best Documentary Feature:

“Abacus: Small Enough to Jail,” Steve James, Mark Mitten, Julie Goldman
“Faces Places,” JR, Agnès Varda, Rosalie Varda
“Icarus,” Bryan Fogel, Dan Cogan
“Last Men in Aleppo,” Feras Fayyad, Kareem Abeed, Soren Steen Jepersen
“Strong Island,” Yance Ford, Joslyn Barnes

Best Documentary Short Subject:

Edith+Eddie,” Laura Checkoway, Thomas Lee Wright
“Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405,” Frank Stiefel
“Heroin(e),” Elaine McMillion Sheldon, Kerrin Sheldon
“Knife Skills,” Thomas Lennon
“Traffic Stop,” Kate Davis, David Heilbroner

Best Live Action Short Film:

“DeKalb Elementary,” Reed Van Dyk
“The Eleven O’Clock,” Derin Seale, Josh Lawson
“My Nephew Emmett,” Kevin Wilson, Jr.
“The Silent Child,” Chris Overton, Rachel Shenton
“Watu Wote/All of Us,” Katja Benrath, Tobias Rosen

Best Foreign Language Film:

“A Fantastic Woman” (Chile)
“The Insult” (Lebanon)
“Loveless” (Russia)
“On Body and Soul (Hungary)
“The Square” (Sweden)


Film Editing:

“Baby Driver,” Jonathan Amos, Paul Machliss
“Dunkirk,” Lee Smith
“I, Tonya,” Tatiana S. Riegel
“The Shape of Water,” Sidney Wolinsky
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” Jon Gregory



Sound Editing:

“Baby Driver,” Julian Slater
“Blade Runner 2049,” Mark Mangini, Theo Green
“Dunkirk,” Alex Gibson, Richard King
“The Shape of Water,” Nathan Robitaille, Nelson Ferreira
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Ren Klyce, Matthew Wood


Sound Mixing:

“Baby Driver,” Mary H. Ellis, Julian Slater, Tim Cavagin
“Blade Runner 2049,” Mac Ruth, Ron Bartlett, Doug Hephill
“Dunkirk,” Mark Weingarten, Gregg Landaker, Gary A. Rizzo
“The Shape of Water,” Glen Gauthier, Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Stuart Wilson, Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick


Production Design:

“Beauty and the Beast,” Sarah Greenwood; Katie Spencer
“Blade Runner 2049,” Dennis Gassner, Alessandra Querzola
“Darkest Hour,” Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer
“Dunkirk,” Nathan Crowley, Gary Fettis
“The Shape of Water,” Paul D. Austerberry, Jeffrey A. Melvin, Shane Vieau


Original Score:

“Dunkirk,” Hans Zimmer
“Phantom Thread,” Jonny Greenwood
“The Shape of Water,” Alexandre Desplat
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” John Williams
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” Carter Burwell


Original Song:

“Mighty River” from “Mudbound,” Mary J. Blige
“Mystery of Love” from “Call Me by Your Name,” Sufjan Stevens
“Remember Me” from “Coco,” Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez
“Stand Up for Something” from “Marshall,” Diane Warren, Common
“This Is Me” from “The Greatest Showman,” Benj Pasek, Justin Paul



Makeup and Hair:

“Darkest Hour,” Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski, Lucy Sibbick
“Victoria and Abdul,” Daniel Phillips and Lou Sheppard
“Wonder,” Arjen Tuiten



Costume Design:

“Beauty and the Beast,” Jacqueline Durran
“Darkest Hour,” Jacqueline Durran
“Phantom Thread,” Mark Bridges
“The Shape of Water,” Luis Sequeira
“Victoria and Abdul,” Consolata Boyle



Visual Effects:

“Blade Runner 2049,” John Nelson, Paul Lambert, Richard R. Hoover, Gerd Nefzer
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Jonathan Fawkner, Dan Sudick
“Kong: Skull Island,” Stephen Rosenbaum, Jeff White, Scott Benza, Mike Meinardus
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Ben Morris, Mike Mulholland, Chris Corbould, Neal Scanlon
“War for the Planet of the Apes,” Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett, Joel Whist

A Look at What Killed Weekday Cartoons

Joshuaonline's Essays

              There has been much said on what "killed" off the Saturday Morning network children's television programming block,  so much you can find them on Youtube and other places easily, but we are going to a different side of this, what caused the end of Weekday children's programming (that is not PBS) on over the air television?

The Animaniacs  were a weekday cartoon during their run. 

       The Early Days 

       Weekdays, after school, was the prime time for children and teens because they had just gotten out of school and television stations hope that maybe they would spend a little tile watching their channel instead of doing other things.  Kind of like, how networks felt that daytime television was a way to target housewives.    Weekday mornings , before school, was also a prime time location for children targeted programming.    

     NBC used to offer children-targeted programming on weekdays from the start of their television broadcasting to 1956, yes they gave up really early on Weekday cartoons.   Alot of the NBC, ABC, CBS affiliates did their own local children's shows around this time as well. "Captain Kangaroo" ran CBS weekday mornings from 1955 until the 80's it was the only consistent thing about CBS' morning programming in their history. 

    With daytime television for the affiliates being mostly done by the networks (though local stations could preempt for what they wanted to do)  Non affiliated, also known as - independent stations, saw an market they could go for, Children's TV.  WGN-TV had the famous Bozo's Circus. So programs that were targeted to the children's market were strong on weekdays as much as Saturdays. 

  

     I would still say that focus for makers of programs for Children were weekends, more than weekdays, meaning they'd the more "quality" or newer programming on Saturdays and weekdays was for repeats and lower budget programming.   Independent stations  would sometimes compete against other one or two doing the same kinds of programming. (In many television markets in the 50's to 80's they had more than 3 commercial stations and could just as many indies. )   

  The 80's

        The peak for syndication market , would have to be the 1980's probably the best time  there ever will be for syndicated television in the United States.  This in general , but the children's television market also got a boost in the 1980's.  One thing that happened in the late 70's and 80's was that there were more independent stations popping up , in mid-sized and smaller markets.  That means there was more market for syndication to try to get some audience it needed.   

   Afternoon cartoons were those traditional things like "Tom and Jerry" , "Looney Tunes", and more but there was something coming to add to this.  In 1983 the first cartoon series made just for syndication started.  "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" was made by Filmation in conjuction with Mattel (more on that in a second). Another series, by DIC also started this same year, "Inspector Gadget" 

     These shows were made with weekday in mind, instead of the network model where they seemed to let a show run for 13 episodes (13 Weeks) then give up and repeat them until the new season and maybe that series would return or they just finished up and went on to something, these series were made with 65 episode target.  65 episodes means you could do 5 new episodes a week for 13 weeks, then repeat them.    "He-Man" proved popular enough to have two seasons and 130 episodes. "Gadget" had two seasons reaching 83 episodes. 

     When I mention Mattel ,this is important, the 80's also started a trend that wasn't allowed before,  Cartoon series based off toys.  Mattel made the He Man toys and a great way to promote them is a TV series,  She-Ra too.  In the 1950's alot of children's programming , like alot of television at the time in general was run by the sponsor companies. Later there were regulations placed to not allow this.  But the 1980's meant alot of deregulation and one of  the things deregulated was children focused television. I  may talk about that in some more detail at some later point.  

     So the idea of a program that could be based off a toy line was able to be added to television in the 1980's.  The main 3 networks were kind of iffy on allowing these kind of shows on their Saturday Morning line up, but an independent station who is more in need for content, and reruns of "My Mother the Car" doesn't do it, this became a match made.   Hasbro made TV series based off their toys like "My Little Pony". These programs became successful and this may have seed something that I will to later. 

    A new broadcast network was launched in 1986 , called FOX, most of it's early stations were these independents but since Fox has limited scheduling (as a nice work around the rule against having a broadcast network and a production company being co-owned) the former indie stations still had alot of time to program themselves including the afternoon, and they could continue with their children's programming. 

1987 Changes Everything 

       I personally think the success of shows based off toys showed Disney the syndication market can be a viable way of making getting into television making. Disney had made their first animated TV Series, "Gummi Bears" in 1985, but that was for NBC, this was something different.  In 1987 they launched "Ducktales".  "Ducktales was different than other series in this market, it wasn't there to sale Ducktales toys, or based of a toy line (though there may have been toys after because of the popularity).   Disney putting their hat in the weekday animation game was the beginning of a big change.  Ducktales proved popular where Disney made a whole new syndicated block - The Disney Afternoon. (Which I've written about before) 

  Like a FOX 

      FOX decided to jump into the weekday and Saturday game in 1990 ,with FOX Kids (I've written about before)  FOX affiliates didn't really have to dip into the syndication market as much , Disney Afternoon could have stayed on their stations but in many markets it moved to the remaining indies. and any remaining syndicated programming could have moved off these stations as well.  Fox provided by 1993 , 3 hours a weekday of programming  there were some who also had morning blocks.   Thanks the removal of the regulation that FOX worked around in the 80's  a production company could now own a network, so Warner Brothers and Paramount saw and opening, this is also how Disney could buy ABC.  In 1995 Warner Brothers launched the WB network and Paramount/ Viacom launched UPN.  Most of these affiliates were former indies and they incorporated their children's blocks time slots for their own uses of launching Kids WB and UPN Kids. This included weekday afternoons and mornings.  

  Now the what killed part , after the jump

It's A Charlie Brown Lookback : Happiness is Warm Blanket , Charlie Brown

Peanuts  The Flashback 

         This is the newest special we've looked at for the Peanuts  and as of this writing the last new special to appear so far.  "Happiness is Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown" came on out in 2011. It was the first new one since 2006 "He's a Bully, Charlie Brown"  . Even though ABC currently has (again as of this writing in 2018)  rights to the Peanuts specials, this one aired on Fox in 2011 , 2012 ,and  2013. It was released to purchase for home viewing too.

          Like the other specials made after Schulz death and some before, this one is mostly based off  strips themselves.   This was the first special made after the death of  Bill Melendez, so it was the first and so far only one made without his direction,  his voices for Snoopy and Woodstock were used though as recorded with director Andy Beall doing  any extra voices.  The voices of the characters continues the tradition of using children as per normal.

         Since music is as noted part of the specials, this one uses scores done by the head Mark Mothersbaugh whom you may know did the music for the Rugrats and was the frontman for Devo. He does try to keep it a feeling of jazz so it's off putting.  The animation is not CGI they found a Korean animation studio to do the basic 2D hand-drawn animation, but it not done in 4:3 but 16:9 HD so their is one change from past specials. 
 
   That's enough background, here's a look at  "Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown".

           It starts with Woodstock flying past familiar characters doing their familiar things they are known for then it reaches Linus where he digging holes looking for his blanket.  This is going to be a flashback special.   Linus is playing baseball with his blanket, which does seem to go well, then he 's walking with Charlie Brown who asks him isn't he afraid of what kids think of his carrying around a blanket, but Linus shows him why he's not.  Snoopy drags Linus around with the blanket.

     Linus that day started a new country/ copyright Peanuts 

     Now we get a Schroeder playing piano scene and tossing  Lucy off the Piano.  Linus watches television with his blanket, while Snoopy acts like a vulture  targeting the blanket , and he enters the house. (don't ask how, he's magic)  Lucy tells Linus it's wash day and she takes the blanket away. 

    More after the Jump